


A Hunting We Will Go

by equilateral_asshat



Series: A Hunting We Will Go [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Archived From My Tumblr, F/M, Other, pinecest - Freeform, pinescest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 06:05:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 64,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16969107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equilateral_asshat/pseuds/equilateral_asshat
Summary: There are stories that mankind has told for generations. Stories that start with “Once upon a time”, and end with “Happily Ever After”. Stories about the bogeyman, about trolls and fairies and dragons. Little do many people know, most of these tales are all based on true stories.When something pulls Dipper from our side to theirs, it’s Mabel’s turn to save her brother’s hide. And she ends up getting help from one of their own.





	1. Chapter One

_Mabel-_

_First and foremost, I want to apologize for my behavior these last few weeks. I realize I’ve kinda been a huge jerk, but I won’t get into that in the letter. I need to talk to you about it in person._

_On that note, I’m hoping you’ll come join me at our old picnic spot out in the National Park north of town, so I can apologize in person and explain myself. While I have my own reasons for my behavior, that’s not really a good excuse. I don’t expect you to forgive me for how I’ve acted at all, and I’m terrified of what might happen between us, but please, PLEASE come talk to me._

_-Dipper_

Mabel had read the rather short note from her twin brother over and over again. He was going to just hope that this little meeting would have her reconsider being upset with him? Well, no, she guessed that was wrong, given he implicitly stated, right there in the last line, that he didn’t expect forgiveness.

Dammit all, that made forgiveness that much harder to withhold! Curse her brother and his adorable, sappy ways of getting around her anger at him. Then again, remembering she was angry at him spurred her onwards, reminding her just _why_ she was angry at him.

For the last couple of months, she had been seeing a guy from her school fairly regularly. And while Chad might not have been the picture perfect guy (okay so maybe he was one signed contract from being a male model) he had admirable qualities! His honey colored hair was always perfect, and his teeth looked like he had polished marble set in his gums. His eyes were like wide open fields of green. His voice was like having delicious caramel poured into your ears, and they could taste it. He always showered Mabel with gifts, too! It was hard to not like a guy that kept giving her gifts.

The very first time they went out, right beforehand, Chad had surprised her with a stuffed pig made to look just like Waddles! It was a wonderful surprise-out of nowhere, there was his gleaming smile, a stuffed pig in his hand, all for her. It was adorable, and sweet, and made happiness rise in her chest like pink soap bubbles, floating around like in the old maze movie! This guy, with his gorgeous hair like shining wheat, and what looked like really, _really_ nice pecs under the thin material of his collared shirt? Heck yes she was gonna go on a date with him!

Dipper pointed out once, after the third or fourth time it happened, that Chad had always arranged for her to go out with him every time he brought her something. He’d insisted that Chad was guilting her into it, or even holding the gifts over her head as though it were some sort of deal; one gift for every date! Mabel had taken exception to that idea, that anybody would feel like they had to buy their way into dating her. Her brother insisted that wasn’t what he meant, but she was sick of hearing it by then. Who wants to listen to their broski hate on their hot boyfriend?! Sure, they weren’t doing their twin-time movie night thing as often, because she would go on dates with Chad. But they were adults now, Dipper should understand this sort of thing better than anyone!

That was another thing; sure, she and Dipper lived in the same town for college, and had rooms just a few blocks from one another. She loved spending time with him, and he loved it too, it was obvious. Anytime they got to hang out and watch bad movies together, or did fast food runs, he seemed so _happy_. And she was happy too, because she missed seeing him more than she cared to admit. Life had changed since they graduated high school, they weren’t always around one another any more. It felt like a chunk of her life was missing, and she could only imagine he felt the same way.

Hanging out with her bro-bro felt good. School would be getting her mood down, or work would be especially tough for a couple of days, and somehow he always knew how to show up and brighten her day. But then, anytime she mentioned Chad, he got sour. He would accuse him of being superficial (so he liked fashion!), or narcissistic (he was concerned about his appearance!), or even say he was just treating Mabel like an object (he was just really interested in securing her attention, okay?). It was frustrating, to have him be so supportive of everything else but then so negative about her guy friends, especially one that seemed so interested in her. It was a good thing to have a different guy to hang out with, right?

“Well, Mabel-Grabel, we’ll figure that out when we get to the park,” she mumbled to herself. She cranked up the stereo as she drove along, trying to let the 1980’s pop songs calm her mood. Her fingers drummed on the steering wheel as she drove along Gravity Falls’ main street. She and Dipper had both, apparently, come here for their Autumn Break week, from school. Without telling one another. They had both been surprised, then a tiny bit upset, Dipper moreso when he heard that Mabel was expecting Chad to come along in a day or so.

“Mabel, why are you bringing him _here_ ,” he’d demanded. “Gravity Falls has always been our thing, yanno?”

“Well, Fart-face, I happen to like Chad like a lot. And I want him to feel like he’s a welcome part of my life, so I invited him here!” She finished the sentence with crossed arms and a huff, which left Dipper dragging his hands down the sides of his face.

“Just please, don’t let me see you two together, then. Do what you want, but I don’t like him. He’s possessive, Mabel. He stares me down when you aren’t watching, like he thinks I’m competition!”

“Well, you kinda have been,” she bluntly noted. “You want to spend just as much time with me as he does but you don’t want him around when you’re around, so if anything you ARE fighting him for my time.”

Dipper had merely responded with a ‘whatever’, shoving his hands in his pockets and trodding off, sulking. Mabel shouted after him, but he ignored her and left her standing there, outside the Mystery Shack, like they had just had some sort of couples’ fight!

“Fine then, just go off and disappear like you always do when you get stupid!” she shouted at the back of his head.

Her mind shifting back to the present, Mabel stepped down on the accelerator, launching her car through a yellow light. Her tightening grip caused the fake leather on the wheel to creak as she rounded a corner, grumbling various, unflattering things about her brother.

“Acts like he’s a jealous ex boyfriend or somethin’,” she finished as she started to leave the city limits. She barreled down the highway, trying to let the music soothe her nerves. During a bout of commercials, she shifted to change stations so that she could continue to have something distracting to listen to, to keep her mood level for this meeting. She was mad at Dipper, he was being a total buttface. But at the same time, confronting him when she felt like this wouldn’t be productive. She knew at least that much.

Just as she glanced back at the road, a red squirrel with a patch of white overtaking its left ear scampered out into the road ahead of her. There was a rather undignified wail, a shriek of tires on pavement as she slammed on the breaks, and a sudden whipping of her car into the other lane for a brief moment. A quick gander at her rear view mirror, however, and she noticed the little fuzzy tailed rodent staring at the back of the vehicle, as if bewildered.

“Phew, thought I creamed the little guy for a moment,” she mused, driving onwards. Had she watched for a second longer, she would have noticed a slight nodding motion, before the squirrel scurried back into the forest at the edge of the road.

=========

The nearby Gravity Falls National Park was a gorgeous patch of wild scenery. Tall coniferous trees, mossy logs, rocky outcroppings along the mountain ledges. With it being the middle of October, the leaves of the deciduous trees were going full tilt into their color change. The paths were a river of orange, yellow and red hues that crunched under Mabel’s feet as she hiked towards the place her brother wanted to meet for their conversation.

Over the years they had been coming to Gravity Falls in the summer, this park had become a favorite spot of theirs. They would often come out to hike while discussing anything that caught their attention at the time. Many a time, they’d come out and had small picnics, if only to try and escape the hustle and bustle that such a small town managed to possess. Mabel knew half of that was tourism, coming to the Mystery Shack and making things busy for Soos and Melody, but it always surprised her just how much activity filled such a small, out of the way place.

Once, when Dipper and Wendy had given an attempt at being more than just friends, he had brought her here on a picnic, and something about it had nagged at Mabel. It felt like he had been sharing _their_ spot with an outsider. Yeah, she liked Wendy, Wendy was awesome! But all the same, to have her brother taking other girls to the spot that they went to was-

“Holy crap, I’m just as bad as he is with Chad,” she wondered aloud. A lot of her anger was quashed by that thought, and replaced by guilt for not understanding how Dipper had felt. She paused at her spot on the path and absentmindedly kicked at a stone, frowning. Now she couldn’t be as mad as she wanted to for this meeting, even if it was just a little bit angry. Damn.

“Well, standing here feeling like a poophead isn’t gonna fix anything,” she mused, and almost instantly set off along the trodden, hard packed dirt of the trail again. As she walked, her mind turned back to trying to understand Dipper’s behavior better, from his perspective.

Chad _had_ just sort of shown up on campus, one day, and started talking to Mabel, out of the blue. For that matter, she suddenly had trouble remembering if he had even been in any of her classes. Just, poof! Hot guy that knows her name appears on the quad one day. But he wasn’t threatening, the other girls all acted jealous (and for good reason, that manmeat was Mabel’s!), and if anything he had been very, very sweet.

So he had come out of nowhere. No big deal. That made it more romantic, right? Super-cute guy shows up and whisks you off your feet? It’s a dream come true! Dipper was overreacting. He had a tendency to do that, seeing mysteries where there wasn’t one. She’s never forgotten that he totally thought Norman was a zombie.

Although, to be fair, Norman hadn’t exactly been human. Or good boyfriend material.

She bit her lip, thinking about it. Okay. Maybe Dipper had a little bit of a point. It was romantic to be whisked off her feet, but… Chad _really_ had come out of absolutely nowhere.

The more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed. Part of her recalled, very suddenly, that he had always scheduled a date on any night she and Dipper had been attempting to arrange twin time; if they had openly discussed it beforehand, Chad would suddenly swoop in with a gift and a request for a date on _that_ evening. But, if it had been spontaneous, he never seemed to weasel in. And, if he ever heard about it, he seemed a bit put off afterwards, as though he was being slighted by their personal time together without him.

 _Okay, I hate it when Dipper is right about stuff like guys. But this is gettin’ real creepy._ She made a mental note to apologize for doubting him up front, and then to ask him to help her find a way to break things off with Chad. Her brother had always been good at getting rid of unwanted boyfriends. Well, not so much Gideon, that first summer, but every other time he’d done his part splendidly!

_So, we get up here, we tell Dipper we decided he’s right and we’re gonna reconsider this whole Chad thing. We forgive our bro-bro, and we need his-_

“HELP!” The voice that interrupted her train of thought was none other than that of her brother. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, goosebumps rising along her skin; he sounded absolutely terrified. Her brother hadn’t screamed like that since Bill pried them apart all those years ago and started the ‘eenie-meenie’ count. “Somebody, anybody, please HELP ME!”

“DIPPER!” she shouted, rounding the corner to the little dip off of the main path, which led to a small flat spot, surrounded by a pair of large boulders and a semi-circular wall of bushes. In the middle of this formation, her brother was clawing at the ground, trying to drag himself towards the path. Vines, speckled with thorns, and so black they almost shone with a purple sheen in the light, wrapped around his ankles and lower legs, leading back into the thicket behind him. With each passing second, the vines wrapped tighter, coiling around his limbs as they pulled backwards. “Aw hell no!”

Leaping into action, Mabel jogged forward and gripped at her brother’s wrists, pulling backwards as she dug her heels in. For a brief second, they were both tugged back towards the bushes, but nothing-man or beast, and now vegetable-ever seemed to anticipate the female Pines twin’s amazing strength. After a brief standstill, Mabel managed to haul backwards, stretching the brambles that clung to her brother so tightly out as she overtook them in the tug of war.

“Dipper, what is going on?!” she demanded, stealing a panicked look at his face. Tears were streaking down his features, whether from the thorns that had to be poking into his flesh, or from the fright of the situation, she couldn’t tell. The only response he managed, at first, was a shake of his head.

“There’s no time to explain it right now, Mabel, please! Just pull me out of here!” The panic in his voice was bone chilling; this wasn’t just some magical beast of Gravity Falls out to mess up their day, like they usually encountered. This sounded more life-and-death than Weirdmageddon had! With a grunt and a flex of her shoulders, Mabel pulled, bracing one foot back a step as the vines started to creak with the newfound strain being placed on them.

“Not gonna let some stupid shrubbery take my bro-bro, I still have to argue with you!” she said, trying to cover up the shakiness in her voice with the idle threat of her long-gone anger. He managed a weak chuckle. She hauled again, taking another step; she was winning!

The vines would have none of that. Just when it seemed like she had saved the day, the number of vines doubled, then tripled, lashing around his torso and upper arms. He cried out in pain as they tightened, spines jabbing through the fabric of his jeans and flannel jacket. Mabel dug her heels in harder, growling as she struggled. Another vine whipped out, striking her across the face, breaking her concentration.

Mabel’s grip began to slip. Dipper shouted out in terror.

There was a sudden yank, from the vines, and her fingers were unwound from her brother’s wrists. She snatched out in the air in front of herself, trying to get her hands on him again before he could be taken from her, but she wasn’t fast enough. Like a stone in a slingshot, he was flung towards the line of bushes around the area.

“Mabel, I-!” was all he got out before plunging into the leaves.

“Dipper, no!” she wailed, leaping into the bushes after him. After a few moments of struggling against the branches, she popped out on the other side, not even four feet from the picnic spot. She turned and dove back in, calling out for her brother, to no avail. She tore one bush out at the roots, right in the spot he would have been, to find nothing. “Gimme back my bro-bro, you stupid weeds!”

She felt tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. “Please, give him back!”

He was gone. Dipper was gone. Her heart wrenched in her chest, body trembling as tears blurred her world. The adrenaline rush was leaving her, and she promptly felt helplessly sluggish and weak. Somewhere, in the back of her head, she heard her own voice from just a few days back echo at her in an almost mocking tone.

 _“Fine then, just go off and disappear!”_ it cried, and she lightly knocked her knuckles against her forehead, trying to beat the voice into submission as it repeated, over and over.

_Just disappear, just disappear, just disappear!_

“Please,” she choked out, a sob wracking her body. “Please, I didn’t mean it…”

-End Chapter 1-


	2. Chapter Two

Gone.

Dipper was gone, and it was her fault. She had pushed him away instead of making a better effort to understand his feelings. She had brought her (now viewed as creepy) boyfriend to the spot where she and Dipper had spent their childhood summers. She hadn’t been strong enough to save him when the bramble vines took him, right out of her fingers.

Mabel spent the better part of an hour curled into a ball, crying her eyes out, sweater pulled over her head. The hard packed dirt under her still had the claw marks from Dipper’s frenzied attempt to save himself from the attack that had taken him away. That-coupled with a bush that now lay somewhere thirty feet from the hole left in the ground, from Mabel’s uprooting it-were the only signs a struggle had occurred.

The thought to call for help had quickly been stomped out; Gravity Falls had taken a new stance on the discussion of the weird and supernatural happenings that occurred there; the “Never Mind All That” bill, which essentially illegalized talking about this sort of thing. Even though it was technically now a missing person’s case, the exact details would have it swept under the rug, no doubt.

Mabel’s mind raced as she tried to think of who she could go to for help. Wendy was away at school, as were Candy and Grenda. While any of them would likely show up to help if asked, Mabel couldn’t drag them into this. It wouldn’t be fair to her friends if she ruined their lives after ruining Dipper’s.

For a brief moment, the thought that she had just potentially let her brother meet his end flitted about the front of her consciousness, but her mind’s eye lasered that pesky little thought right to death. She would not let herself believe Dipper was gone-gone.

“Well, guess I know where to start my search,” she said, standing up. “Time to call the Grunkle’s.”

=========

“C’mon, come on!” she moaned for the thirtieth time into her phone’s receiver. For the thirtieth time, after ringing for a minute and a half, her call was shunted straight to a voice-mailbox that, after having received 29 other messages already left by her, was now full and unable to hold anymore messages. “Gosh dangit! Answer your friggin’ phone, you wrinkled butts! I’m about to start using real swear words!” she groused before flinging the phone against her bed.

Mabel had gotten the attic at the Mystery Shack for her visit to Gravity Falls. Her brother had opted to stay with Fiddleford, helping him with the myriad of inventions the old coot had been tinkering away at. Flopping onto her mattress, she rolled towards the center of the room, and then promptly set about rolling the other way, facing the wall on her side. Seeing Dipper’s empty bed caused a sensation of helpless panic to well up in her chest, and a lump to tighten in her throat. Before she could stand to let herself cry again, there was a knock at the door to the tune of _Shave and a Haircut_.

“Heya, Mabel-dood?” Soos inquired as he cracked the door. “You okay? I’m hearing an awful lotta sort’ve bad words, and phone throwing, and stuff like that up here. The meeting with your bro go south?”

“Somethin’ like that,” she relented, sitting up and rubbing at her eyes. Soos came through the doorway, closing the door behind himself before he plodded over to sit next to her on the small bed. His weight-still as plentiful as it had always been-caused the mattress to sag, and Mabel to unavoidably lean into his shoulder. As he wrapped her in a comforting, one armed hug, Mabel began to relay the brief encounter back to the man she regarded as an older-brother-slash-cousin kind of guy.

“… and then he was just, gone,” she finished, tears running down the lines of her cheekbones. “And it’s my fault.”

“Yikes, uh, well, Mabel, first of all, did you summon those weird octo-vines to steal Dipper away?” Soos asked. She scrunched her face up as she tilted her head to meet his eyes. There was only honest curiosity on his face. With a sigh, she shook her head. “See, totally not your fault.”

“But if we hadn’t been fighting about Chad, then we wouldn’t have been meeting there!” she objected. Soos raised a hand.

“Dipper chose the venue, dood. That ain’t on you. Also, I severely doubt he expected to be whisked away magically by some weird tentacle bush thing, yanno?” Mabel gave a small nod. “So, the question now is; you can’t reach the Stan twins, so what’s the next move we take?”

“We?”

“Yeah dood, we! Dipper’s family, just like you, and I’ll be darned if I’m gonna let some weird magicky thing take my bro away from us!” Soos declared, raising a tightly clenched fist in defiance of the powers-that-be. Mabel could only manage to admire his courage in the face of total loss she had been feeling. Maybe she should take a page from his book. Before she could talk, though, the door swung open to reveal Soos’ grandmother.

“Soos, you are going nowhere,” she said with her kindly, smiling face. Barely ever did that gentle grin leave her features. He frowned at her.

“But Abuelita, Dipper needs my-” he started to argue, but she raised a hand.

“You are staying here to run the Shack, and take care of my granddaughter-in-law, who is currently carrying my great-grandchild-to-be. You cannot leave.” Soos grumbled.

“But-!”

“I will _ground you,_ ” she interjected, soft tone never once wavering, before turning to leave. Soos groaned and buried his face in his hands. Mabel quirked an amused half-grin at her friend’s predicament.

“Sorry, Mabel, but I guess I gotta stay here and take care of stuff or I’d totally help,” he said with a sigh. She just gave him a tight hug, as hard as she could squeeze.

“You big softie, I don’t think she can really ground you-”

“You don’t know her well enough, dood.”

“-but I agree with Abuelita. You have responsibilities here, I can’t expect you to follow me on a wild goose chase and put yourself in danger. You have a family to take care of. Plus, if anything happened to you, your baby would have to grow up without a dad,” she added, patting him on the knee. Soos’ frown deepened, but then he straightened up and puffed out his chest.

“I can’t go with you, but I can help! Follow me downstairs,” he announced with newfound enthusiasm. Mabel rose to her feet to follow him, right down into the gift shop. He rummaged through a few boxes, grumbling until he let loose a victorious gasp. “Aha! Here we go girl-dood, take this, on the house. You’ll need it.”

With a twist and a light toss, the object in Soos’ hands found its way into her own. Her eyes widened as her fingers flexed around the familiar object. Eyes glittering with thanks, she leapt on Soos and planted a big, wet kiss on his cheek.

“Oh thank you thank you thank you!” she chimed, kissing again before she held one hand over her head, clutching the gift firmly as she pulled the trigger. There was a sound of a mechanism firing, and a whirring of cable before the familiar clunk she heard that first time, seven years prior, met her ears, and another squeeze on the trigger hauled her several feet into the air. Maniacal laughter bubbled out of her throat, her free hand shaking in defiance at the ground.

“GRAPPLING HOOK!”

=========

Mabel decided her next move was to consult with the various magical creatures of Gravity Falls for help. First, she packed a backpack full of various necessities for the trip; trail mix, water, a couple bags of candy, an external battery backup for her phone while she was hiking, a flashlight, some jerky, and a compass and map, just in case.

After making sure she was ready to begin her journey, she thanked Soos again, said a quick and thankful goodbye to Abuelita and Melody, and started off the porch and into the woods. She hadn’t gotten a few hundred yards away from the Mystery Shack when her phone started to buzz in her pocket. Before she could hear the music, she was fishing desperately for it, in case it was one of the Grunkles. Raising it to her ear immediately, she answered.

“Hello?!” she nearly shouted, fingers crossed.

“Mabel, darling,” a luscious voice called from the other end. She felt her face go white, and she swallowed at the sudden tightness in her throat, as her caller greeted her by one of his preferred pet names.

“Oh, uh, heya Chad, what’s up?” she replied, starting to walk again. Whether she even tried to hide the apprehension in her voice or not, she was uncertain at first. She really didn’t want to talk to him right now. If anything, there was a council meeting of tiny, inner-Mabels banging gavels and insisting she break up with him right then and there.

“Just calling to say I’ll be in Gravity Falls soon, and that I cannot wait to see you,” he purred through the earpiece. Ugh, now that she had stopped to rethink his approach and everything, she was honestly a little put off by his tone. He sounded more like a cat toying with a mouse than somebody talking to a loved one. It was creepy.

“Um, ‘bout that,” she said as she hurried her pace, trying to distance herself from the Shack even faster. She felt like he was already there, and she couldn’t get far enough away. The gavels in her imagination started to get bigger, and bang louder, along with a chorus of those tiny Mabels demanding she drop the bomb on him and leave his too-sexy-to-be-true butt.

“Something the matter?”

“You could say that. I had a bit of a squabble with the bro-sauce and I’m trying to patch things up right now,” she said, finding comfort in the half-truth she just let slip.

“Might I be of assista-” he started, but she cut him off swiftly.

“No! No no, this is, uh, this is a me-and-Dipper thing, yanno? Plus you two don’t really get along all that well sooo…” she trailed off, biting her lower lip as she power walked off the trail and through the trees. She heard the scoff on the other end, and almost felt a little pride at that.

“Don’t let fights with your twit of a sibling bleed over into our thing, dear.”

“Oh, I’m so-” she said, faking a sudden signal loss. “Sig- is b- goi- cutti- o-!” And with that, she hung up, then flipped her phone over and quickly undid the battery plate, before plucking the battery out. Pocketing the whole mess, she made a mental note to put the battery back later. For now, she was content to have the only method of contact with Chad broken off. She had more important matters to worry over, even if she was being tried for failure to split up with him by the council of inner Mabels.

 _I’ll handle that end of stuff once I get a lead on my missing bro-bro, you goobs,_ she told them, marching onwards. Her destination was was visible for everyone in town to see, if they hiked out this direction, but they typically ignored it. Or maybe they were just very, very ignorant even after Bill Cipher’s attempted invasion. Either way, she stood at the cliff face, staring at a rather cartoonish hole in the side of the mountain. Readying her trusty new grappling hook, she took aim and fired through the hole. With a testing tug, she confirmed it was indeed set, and squeezed, retracting line as she scaled the stone wall.

“Alley-oop!” she giggled, rolling through the hole and into an open cave. Almost immediately, the stench of sweat and stale pizza hit her nose. Her face twisted as she tried to fight the urge to dry heave for a moment, her eyes watering. When she managed to open them, she was faced with an entire herd of Manotaurs all staring at her, circled around her position, half amazed, half angered.

“A WOMAN IN THE MAN CAVE!” one of them bellowed, thumping his fist against his chest. Did… did he have fists for-no, nope, Mabel decided that was unimportant and shoved the thought from her mind. She stuck her hand into the backpack and began to rummage as a chant of “TOSS HER!” rose up in the crowd, hooves stomping with rhythm as they all approached.

“Wait!” she cried out as they bore down on her, holding a plastic bag out in front of herself. A chorus of gasps and murmurs arose from the half-bulls. “I bring a peace offering, I just need to ask some questions!”

There was a whoosh of air as something passed over her hands in a blur. They Manotaurs huddled up a few feet away, hushed voices and open-mouthed chomping all she could hear. She sat, legs crossed as she patiently awaited the verdict. After a loud belch echoed through the cave, one of them-she recognized him as one Dipper had called Chutzpar-turned to face her.

“Very well then, human girl! We will answer your questions in exchange for the jerky!” He stepped closer, then sat next to her, legs also crossed as he patted a knee. “Explain your plight!”

For the second time that day, Mabel described Dipper being taken by the vines, and the events that had led her to the Manotaurs. Chutzpar would nod and grunt every so often, the other Manotaurs standing nearby and watching this spectacle; a woman, openly conversing with a Manotaur?! This just didn’t happen!

“So, uh, I figured you guys helped Dipper out once before, taught him how to do man stuff, and you seem pretty magical,” she noted, trying to mask the skepticism in her voice as she gave the large brute a once over with her eyes. “Have you ever heard of such a thing happening?”

“Weird stuff happens around here all the time, human. That’s just how it is. I’m sorry, but though we owe Dipper the Destructor much, we do not have the answers you seek.” Both Mabel and Chutzpar frowned, gazes downcast. He perked back up. “But hey, you’re here, wanna like… touch our muscles and stuff?”

“NO!” she exclaimed, scooting back with a sudden start, on her feet in a moment. “N-no, that, uh, that’s fine. I’m sure they’re great,” she said, averting her eyes as several of them flexed at her. “But I, uh, I gotta find out how to get my bro-bro back. Can one of you just, uh, help me find a way out of here?”

=========

Mabel would never again venture into the Manotaur’s lair without Dipper beside her. She had always figured he was exaggerating, but they all tried to insist she do stuff before she left, like shove her hand into a “Pain Hole” or something? It was all very strange, even to her. She was glad her brother had decided their advice and teachings weren’t that important to being a man.

If anything, the more she thought about it, he had learned values that she found very admirable. He was always willing to listen to her problems, he never said no if she asked for help, and he was always willing to forgive people. She felt her eyes start to sting as tears threatened to begin anew, and she stomped her foot fiercely.

“I am done with all this cryin’ bizz! You stop that, mood!” she ordered. The bout of silliness did improve her overall mood, she found, and she continued along. She hummed old boy band songs to herself as she traversed the forest. She had a few more stops to try.

The multibear, although polite, was no more helpful than the Manotaurs had been. He too extended his sympathies, citing Dipper as a dear friend. The hand witch, while excited to see Mabel, said she had never heard of anybody being stolen by bramble vines, as hands were more her forte, just as feet were her sister’s, two towns over. After tea with the witch and her rather handsome fiancé, she moved along on her quest for information.

While she approached her next destination, she paused to eat a handful of trail mix and drained half of her canteen. Wiping her forehead on her forearm, she huffed, admiring the beauty of the woods, reminiscing on the times she and Dipper would play tag, or go exploring among these very same trees. A sad smile managed to weasel its way onto her face.

“You’ll get him back, Mabel,” she reassured herself. As she tilted her canteen for another swig, a familiar tapping sound came from a tree nearby; a woodpecker, hammering away at the tree’s trunk to get at the grubs inside. Mabel playfully whistled at the bird, which flew closer, head tilting to observe her. They always seemed smarter here, than the townsfolk gave them credit for.

“Hey there, fella. You wouldn’t happen to know what took Dipper, wouldja?”

There was a brief pause, and then the woodpecker hammered away on the log next to her. _Ta-ta-tap, tap tap tap tap, tap._ There was a brief pause, and then it started up again, _tap tap ta-ta-tap tap, tap ta-ta-tap, tap._

Mabel gave the bird a halfhearted smile, tossing it a gummy worm for its troubles before she stood up and stretched. “Thanks anyways, I guess!” The bird repeated its tapping, but she had already walked on towards her next stop.

=========

Pulling out her cell phone (and reinserting the battery), Mabel cycled through old sound files and found one as she stood in an old, but lovely glade, with several carved stones strewn about. Tapping on the file to play it, Grenda’s deep voice bellowed out, a droning chant she hadn’t heard in ages. The ground shook, soil a mere few feet away giving way as a wall several feet high, hewn from stone lurched out of the earth. A pair of tall doors swung open, a musical accompaniment highlighting the motion.

“Come in, come in! And take off your shoes, we have a thing abou-” a high pitched, nasal voice began, but there was a pause. _“YOU!”_

“Yeah yeah, me. Look, I just have some questions and so far everybody else hasn’t been any help at all! I just wanna know if-” Mabel began, but a snuffling whinny cut her off as a hoof stamped down. Celestabellebethabelle’s eyes narrowed at her.

“There is NOTHING I want to say to you, get out of here!” the unicorn demanded in a shrill tone jabbing at Mabel with the end of her horn. Mabel swatted it away effortlessly.

“I don’t want your dang hair, you daffy horse! I wanna know if you’ve ever heard of anybody being tangled up in brambles and disappearing?” The unicorn’s expression shifted from displeasure to sudden and very present fear.

“ _Purple_ brambles?” the ungulate asked. Mabel nodded excitedly.

“Yeah, actually! They got my brother and-”

“ _NO! OUT!_ ” the unicorn shouted, rearing up to shove on her with its front hooves, scooting her towards the doorway. “I want none of this! I won’t be involved in it!”

“I just need an answer!” Mabel cried, desperately shoving back. Celestabellebethabelle caught her off guard, however, and gave her a good shove out of the gate.

“We may be jerks, but we’re not suicidal! Unicorns don’t get mixed up in the business of the Fae!” the horned horse shouted, the gates slamming shut. With a noticeable urgency, the wall to the hidden garden sank away, leaving no trace.

Mabel could only blink. The Fae? Hadn’t she read somewhere in one of Dipper’s old nerd books that gnomes were Fae? A shudder ran along her spine, a groan edging out of her throat.

“Dammit, the little creeps better have a good answer…”

=========

“Let me outta here you buttfaces! I will obliterate all of you!”

Mabel struggled against the net trap she had so blindly walked into. Did these tiny little jerks learn all of their traps from watching cartoons?! And why was it so effective against her, ugh. Jeff the gnome pointed at her accusingly, perched on a stump that put him at eye level with her, several feet away.

“You’ll obliterate nothing, Mabel Pines! You’re trespassing on our turf, you have no power here!” he demanded, stomping his angry little gnome feet. Had she been here on less serious business, Mabel might have laughed about that sight. _File it away for later, Mabel. We’ll giggle at his tiny little angry gnome dance later._

“Look, Jeff, I just need to get some answers and I’ll leave you guys be!” she explained, struggling around in the net.

“Information isn’t free! You know what we want,” he stated flatly, crossing his arms. Mabel narrowed her eyes at the tiny cretin.

“I. Am _not._ Marrying you.” She pointed at the surrounding gnomes that still seemed to follow Jeff’s lead. “ANY of you!”

“Then rot up there!” the little bearded man cried, turning his back on her. She huffed, struggling to untangle herself and maybe kick him across the clearing. Then, a metaphorical lightbulb went off over her head.

“Hey, hey, hows about I help you handsome guys learn how to impress a woman so you can find a queen all on your own, no kidnapping, no lying about being a zombie…?” she offered. The other gnomes and Jeff all huddled immediately, speaking in hushed tones. Jeff turned back to face her.

“And you just want some questions answered?”

She nodded eagerly, biting on her lips inside her mouth to avoid yelling at him. He stroked his beard as he considered.

“Weeelll… okay, cut her down Glenn!”

At one second, Mabel was right side up, and the next she was upside down, but free of the entanglement of the net. She sprung upright, to her feet, adopting a fighting stance momentarily. Jeff backed up, hands lifting to shield his face.

“No not the face I need that!” A moment passed, and when he opened his eyes, she had her hand extended. After another moment’s hesitation, he grasped two of her fingers, shaking on the deal. “Okay so, where do we start?”

“Well, first of all, you don’t trap prospective girlfriend’s in a rope net,” she said matter-of-factly. One of the other gnomes, right beside Jeff, scrawled things down as Mabel spoke.

“What kind of net do we use, then?”

“You DON’T!” she fired back. “If you wanna find a nice girl, kidnapping and traps are not your path to victory! Sheesh…”

As the hours passed, Mabel described the virtues of getting to know a girl first, and making sure she was okay with marrying more than one tiny little man. She also pointed out that they might find success in species other than humans, as humans were very short lived, compared to gnomes.

“Okay, but, what kind of guy-or, well, guys-should we be?” Jeff pleaded. They were all sitting around her in a semicircle by now, hanging on her every word.

“You gotta be patient, first of all. You can’t just meet a girl, and then in one week, try to marry her right off the bat! Courtship is important.” The gnomes all nodded at her, sending a ripple of motion through the tiny red hats.

“What else?” a tiny voice cried out.

“Well… You need to do nice things for her. Without expecting anything in return. I know, I know you think it’s tit-for-tat and, uh… excuse that phrase please. But really, if you give a girl a gift, or do something nice for her, you shouldn’t act like you expect her to reciprocate! Don’t be too pushy,” she went on. In her mind, she reflected very suddenly on how she was telling the gnomes exactly how to not be like Chad, with his gift giving. He had always offered her a gift, but then immediately followed it with a ‘go on a date tonight?’ before he would even let her have it. She had originally thought he was just teasing her, but now she realized he was baiting her into it.

Dipper, on the other hand, had been doing her favors, and getting her gifts, with a complete lack of expectation. If anything, it seemed like he just did it to make her smile, to hear her laugh. She sighed wistfully.

“Another thing you need to do is to make sure that every chance you get, you’re making her smile, or feel good about herself. Make sure she feels important, without feeling trapped, or like she belongs to you.”

_Again, with the Chad-bashing? Mabel, we gotta have a serious think-time and discuss how we fell for a guy that acts like this. Is it just cuz he was hot? Well, IS hot, but we know what I mean._

There was the sound of a pencil scratching away in a tiny notebook, and then Jeff clearing his throat.

“So, uh, really, thank you so much for your help, Mabel. Sorry we were jerks before,” he apologized, kicking at a pebble on the ground, Mabel waved it off.

“You guys didn’t know better, I’m sure. Anywho, think you can answer a question for me, now?” The gnomes all nodded eagerly. Mabel described Dipper’s disappearance again, skipping some of the gruesome details, and about how she felt responsible for it, this time. “But yeah, just like I said, nabbed by purple-ish brambles, and when I went to ask the unicorns, all they said was they don’t get mixed up in Fae bizz, and I figured ‘Oh, hey, Jeff and his buddies are related to the Fae, right? Maybe they can help.’”

A sudden hush had overtaken the gnomes, all of them staring at her, wide eyed. Were they afraid of her? Well, yeah, they were, but… this was a different kind of fear on their faces. This was _primal._

“Well… I, uh…. Okay, the thing is-” Jeff stammered, rubbing at his arm. Mabel tapped her foot impatiently. “Okay, look! Our group kinda got exiled by the Fae for crimes we _allegedly_ committed on the other side of the Hedge.”

“The Hedge?” Mabel said, noting the emphasis on the words. Jeff nodded.

“The gateway between this world-the Middle-and the Fae realm. It’s kinda metaphorical, sometimes literal? But, yeah. We’re not really supposed to be involved in anything Fae, so-”

“Hey! You promised you could answer my questions!” she spat, stomping her booted foot. The gnomes shrank back in fear. “We had a deal!”

“Wait! Please, just-I can’t give you any _direct_ answers, it’s a part of my sentence,” Jeff noted. “But there’s this little storefront back in town, the guy who runs it has a lot of books about the Fae, and all sorts of magicky stuff too. He should be able to answer any questions you have, alright? Here,” the gnome leader offered, reaching into his pocket and pulling a satchel free, tossing it to Mabel. “Give him that as payment. It should buy you anything you need.”

“What is it, gnome gold, or-” Mabel asked, moving to open the pouch. Jeff cried out before she could touch the drawstring.

“VOLATILE, okay?! It’s volatile, and sunlight might make it go off! Just get it to him, it should get you any information you need!” he pleaded. Mabel glanced from the tiny pouch, to Jeff, and back again, before pocketing the small sack and its contents.

“Alright,” she said, kneeling down. “Can I get a name for this store?”

-End Chapter 2-


	3. Chapter Three

Mabel stared at the store, mentally making a note to go punt Jeff if he had mislead her. This just seemed a little bit too ridiculous to be real, even to the girl that had once helped free the secret Eighth-and-a-half president from the peanut brittle he had preserved himself in for centuries. As that particular thought crossed her mind, a sigh of resignation escaped her.

“Well, Mabel, if he lied to us we can try for a new record in gnome-kicking,” she mumbled as she pushed on the door. As the door swung open, the bell rung, and voices of hushed chatter trailed off, everybody turning to look at the newcomer. It was if her very presence was an affront, at first, before a pair of customers went back to what they were doing.

“So yeah, my Red-eyes-white-drake attacks you directly for 80 damage.”

“Your deck is rigged,” the other grumped. Almost immediately the chatter returned to the store, people arguing over game rules or cartoon show canon.

The _Wizard’s Closet_ was a somewhat popular gaming store in Gravity Falls, off of one of the side roads, in a tiny strip mall. Mabel and Dipper had passed it several times, and Dipper often came here to buy gaming supplies (especially dice, dice were like jewelry to nerds, she guessed). Hundreds of comics lined the far wall, while rulebooks for games like Trailseeker and DD&MD, along with board games lined row upon row of shelves. A few tables were surrounded by various participators of the geek and nerd cultures of the town, and another had a rather grumpy looking, shaggy-haired gray cat curled up on it. Mabel paused to give the feline a gentle rub behind an ear, to which it purred happily.

She browsed for a few minutes, trying to figure out just who she should go talk to. Everybody in here just looked like another nerd engrossed in their hobbies, and the employee manning the counter reminded her a little bit of Soos. Nobody here looked especially knowledgeable about what she needed to find.

“Anything I can help you find?” a voice perked up from behind her. She nearly leapt out of her skin as she whirled around to find the gentleman behind the counter had silently made his way over to assist her.

“Well, uh, I was looking for some rather specific stuff, and a fr-” she began, but then thought better of her wording, “-an _acquaintance_ of mine told me that I should be able to find it here?”

The man simply nodded, hands spread before him as he gestured to the shelves. “Well, what game is it for?”

“It, uh, well…” She stumbled over her wording. If she violated the Never-Mind-All-That she might get herself in hot water. She’d be no good to Dipper if Blubs and Durland arrested her. “I’m looking for information on a more ‘fantastic’ sort’ve thing?”

The man perked an eyebrow at her, his face hesitant. She grumbled and dug into her pocket, pulling out the tiny satchel that had Jeff’s handprint on it in dark ink. Both eyebrows went up, a silent nod then followed by a slight jerking motion of his head towards the far end of the store.

“Follow me,” he said quietly. Mabel shoved the bag back in her pocket, trailing behind the gentleman to a panel on the wall that looked fairly standard. He knocked gently on the wall, and a well hidden panel slid open at about eye level. A pair of old, gray-blue eyes gazed out of the slit.

“What?” a gruff voice came from the other side. The man stepped aside, giving Mabel a sort of ‘Show the man’ motion with one hand. Digging back into her pocket with a frustrated expression, she retrieved the pouch and held it up. The panel slid shut immediately, and the wall swung inwards.

“Hope you get what you need, Miss Pines,” the employee said with an almost unnerving level of familiarity. Sure, she and Dipper were known in this town, but to have somebody refer to her like that, when she didn’t even know him? Creepy. She stepped into the dimly lit room behind the panel, which quickly slid back into place with a loud _kachunk_ of a mechanism locking it.

As her eyes adjusted, she noticed row after row of shelves along the walls, each lined with bottles containing a menagerie of things she recognized; dried insects, dried frogs, live frogs, fairy wings, a tiny, living mountain lion? There was even more jarred stuff that she didn’t recognize, such as some golden ooze that seemed to continuously fold over on itself, along with a small black orb that would swirl like liquid, then crystallize into a jagged shape, and then in the same second vaporize into a dark cloud before resuming its liquid state.

The other shelves were lined with books, books, and even more books, along with walking sticks and what she was pretty sure were wands. A small desk at the back had an archaic looking cash register sat on it, as well as a large tome that appeared to be a sales ledger. Before she could spare another moment to look around, a gnarled hand with bony fingers and bulbous knuckles appeared at eye level.

“Let me see what the little miscreant sent you with,” she heard a voice croak out. While she dug for the satchel, her eyes followed the hand to the arm, and the arm to the face of her current-as she had dubbed him-magical sales assistant.

He was a hunched little man, easily older than the Stan twins. His skin was flecked with liver spots, and seemed to hang a bit loose on his skeletal frame. He was dressed in a three piece suit that was a dark, rich purple color, the tails on the coat reaching just past his knees. Wild, white hair ringed the bald dome of his scalp, sticking out at odd angles. Tiny spectacles with a myriad of lense attachments sat on a long, hooked nose. He licked his lips, and with a judging stare, flexed his fingers at Mabel while she sat the pouch against his palm.

With an unnatural speed he snatched it away, turning towards a lamp as he delicately undid the drawstring, then slowly upended the contents into his other hand. A delighted gasp escaped his throat, Mabel’s eyes wide as she watched over his shoulder. In his hand sat an oblong, smooth crystal that seemed to thrum with electricity in its orange center. In fact, she could see the jagged bolts vibrating in place, struggling against the prison that held them.

“What _is_ that?” she wondered aloud. The older man seemed to only just now remember she was here as he tensed at the sound of her voice. “I mean, it’s pretty…”

“Young lady, this is crystallized lightning. Polished even! Natural sunlight hits it, though, and it’ll go back into its natural state.” She stepped back a bit, cocking her head curiously. “Basically if a ray of sunshine so much as grazes it, it goes from pretty rock, to big huge bolt of electricity that will hit the nearest thing.” She nodded as though she understood while he slipped it back into the bag. “Very hard to come by, very expensive.”

“Jeff said I could use it to pay for anything I needed for a, well, quest? I guess you could call it,” she stated. Thin lips frowned at her, a hand shifting to stroke a long, thin beard that hung to the middle of his sternum.

“And what, pray tell, did you have to give that little oddball in order to get something so valuable from him?” the old man asked, as if skeptic of any answer she might dispense.

“Dating advice.”

For a brief moment, she thought he was about to kick her out, the way his eyes narrowed, shoulders stiffening. But, then, a loud, rasping laugh escaped him, his free hand now slapping over his knee.

“Lord knows his little band of miscreants needs it!” he chuckled, extending a hand towards her. “Name is Dustin Winkelmeyer.” She took the offered hand in her own and gave it a friendly shake.

“Pleased to meet you, Mister Winkelmeyer, I’m-”

“I know damn well who you are. Anybody who works here does,” he said, abruptly cutting her off. “Anybody in the business of the weird in this town ought to know the names and faces of Dipper and Mabel Pines.” She gave him a very sour look, lips in an upset pout. “Er, sorry, but in my line of work you don’t get many young women customers. Let alone ones that take on interdimensional dream demons and live.”

“Anyhow, Jeff told me you might have information about the Fae?” she noted, turning to look at the labels on a few bottles. The one that caught her attention the most was a swirling storm, labeled **“Infant Hurricane”**.

“And why, exactly, are you poking around in the business of the Fae?” Dustin asked, shuffling over to a cabinet, where he deposited the crystallized lightning. “I would think that somebody who dealt with as much as you did, during Bill Cipher’s little upheaval of reality, wouldn’t want to get mixed up in other things just as potentially world ending,” he continued, rearranging a few small bottles.

“I don’t _want_ to,” she explained with a sigh. “From what I can gather, they took Dipper for whatever reason.” A sound of glass shattering and a low, ghostly moan came from the old man’s direction. She turned, seeing that he was staring directly at her, eyes uncertain. Somehow mentioning Dipper got taken always had that effect.

“Okay, this is very bad. The stone you brought me will pay for anything and everything you think you need for this,” he offered, bending down with a tiny brush and dustpan to sweep up the broken bottle. “The Fae taking people your age is a very, very bad thing. Usually they specialize in babies or very young children, swapping them out with a changeling. You can’t replace an adult very easy. It causes questions when your replacement acts inhuman.”

“Oh…” Mabel mumbled, her gaze downcast as a tight feeling of panic welled up in her chest. Dustin looked up with a frown.

“I’m very sorry, but being one hundred and twenty seven tends to kill some of the filters between the brain and the mouth,” he said by way of apology. “What can I help you find for this undertaking of yours?”

Mabel shrugged, crossing the room to look at some of the books. She could smell them; the musty old tomes in their leather bindings, the two smells intermingling to create an alluring odor. Dipper once tried to explain to her why old books smelled good, something about chemical compounds and vanilla?

_I wish I had listened better when he tried to teach me stuff_ , she thought wistfully.

“I basically just need all the info you can give me on them. I need to find out how to get my brother back.” She started pulling down any books that seemed to be about fairies, sprites, pixies, and anything else Fae. “And anything else you think might be useful to me. In fact, is there any way you could help, at all? You seem pretty smart about this stuff already.”

“Oh, no no no, I can’t interfere in whatever the Fae do, not directly,” he grumbled. “If I try to step on their toes at all, my shop will fold in on itself and I’ll lose everything.”

“They can put you out of business?” she asked, incredulous. Old man Winkelmeyer shook his head.

“No, I’m being quite literal. This shop is an extradimensional space that Fae magic helped me create. If I do anything to directly do harm to-or, cause overall discomfort to-the Fae, the shop and everything in it will wad up, like a piece of paper crushing itself into a ball, before burping out of existence.” She gawked a bit at that. “It was part of the deal I set up to make this store. Besides, it lets me hide this place from the Blind Eye Society, and anybody who follows Never-Mind-All-That.”

“Well, Dipper and I might’ve kinda sorta _destroyed_ the Blind Eye,” she noted. “Like, nonviolently! We just gave them a taste of their own medicine and bloop-blorp, wiped their minds! Made’m forget they were a thing, hehe.” The old shopkeeper nodded.

“You know, I do suppose they’ve been a bit more absent than usual this last decade or so,” he mused. “At my age, time starts to blur together. Hard to tell a year from a week, some days.”

Mabel merely nodded at that, setting the first stack of books on the counter. She then returned to the shelves and began eyeballing the various walking staves and wands there. They all seemed very plain, to her, which seemed very unmagical. She was hoping for them to be more flashy, or at least polished! These all looked like sticks. They weren’t even carved or sealed. With a shrug of resignation, she plucked up one of the longer staves and a wand that had similar, swirly woodgrain; they were already the prettiest, so she decided they were her favorites. On her way back to the counter, she passed by a case filled with a bunch of sparkly jewelry, each of them an intricately piece of woven threads of precious metals, encasing various gemstones.

All but one. On the far end of the case, there was what she would normally believe to be an ugly, almost unnerving pendant. It was simple in its make; two square nails, tightly coiled around one another in a double helix formation. There was a metal loop just under each of the nail heads, which led to a thong of leather cord that was lined with dull, dark grey beads made of metal. Looking at it gave her goosebumps, yet she felt oddly drawn to it. Winkelmeyer cleared his throat, snapping her out of her daze.

With another step she set her current armload down on the counter. The old man scrutinized everything she brought up, then would scribble things in his ledger, using a quill made from what looked like a bright orange peacock tail feather. The ink on the page would spark a bit, then sizzle as it faded to a deep dark black. While she watched, she felt an odd tug on her mind, eyes flashing back over to the jewelry case.

Without even realizing she was doing it, she had stepped back over to stare at the twisted nail pendant again. She frowned thoughtfully, trying to figure out what it was about that particular chunk of metal that was calling to her.

“What’s the story behind this thing?” she asked, tapping the case gently. Taking a brief respite from the work of writing in the book, Winkelmeyer shuffled over to join her. Upon seeing what she was pointing at, he sighed deeply.

“That is an old, old charm, Mabel. People have claimed that it was created with multiple purposes. Some say the twisted nails represent a love spell, as it was meant to twist two lives together. Others say it was for binding a living Fae to our world, and others still claimed that whoever wore it would be able to learn anything they wanted to about the Fae.” He paused, watching her expression. She had only nodded, sucking on her lower lip while she processed all of that. “Ugly thing, though, and nobody knows how to make any of its magic work, so don’t worry yourself wi-”

“I’ll take it,” she blurted, unsure where the words came from. The shopkeeper stared at her, eyes searching for a reason to tell her no. But he eventually just shrugged, unlocked the case, and plucked the charm from the red velvet cushion it sat on.

“Very well, Miss Pines. I’ll be glad to have the damn thing out of my shop, creeps me out.” After returning to the desk and adding the newest sale to his book, he produced a leather backpack from seemingly nowhere, and slid everything into it. Literally, everything; the books, the walking stick, the wand, they all just slid into it and the backpack never changed size. Mabel almost questioned it, but then she recalled a thing like this from Dipper and Ford’s nerd games they always played.

“Thank you, really. I hope that what Jeff sent me with was actually enough to pay for all this,” she noted, slipping the backpack over her shoulder. “Is there anything else you can think of that I might need? Or, what happens if I need to come back for something else? I don’t think I can afford anything in here!” The old man waved the question away as if it were nothing,

“Anything else you need to help with your search for your brother, to snatch him back from the Fae? Consider it paid for,” he explained, shuffling over to the large door that marked the only way in and out of the shop. He turned a large handle, and various gears in the door made a low grinding hum as they whirred, and eventually the door swung inwards. Mabel nodded to him in thanks, and stepped through.

Nobody in the shop even seemed to pay attention. Just, one second she had been in the shop, then she hadn’t, and now she was back. She made a mental note that for all the guff online forums gave nerds for supposedly being afraid of-or obsessed with-girls on “their” turf, these guys didn’t give a single solitary snot. Well, okay, that weaselly guy in the corner halfheartedly waved while sweating profusely, but that was how most nerds acted around her. Even Dipper, sometimes, she realized.

_Man, Mabel, when we get him back, we gotta have a LONG with him talk about how weird he acts ‘round ya…_

=========

Mabel sat down at the makeshift desk that Soos helped her construct out of two sawhorses and a plank of spare plywood, spreading the books out across it. Off to one side sat a mug full of hot tea, with just a tiny smidgen of Mabel Juice added, for that extra kick. She selected one of the largest tomes, the title describing it as an encyclopedia about the Fae, and opened it to the glossary to see if it said anything outright recognizable. Seeing nothing about brambles, she decided to then look up the Hedge. She flipped pages until she found the beginning of the article and started to read.

Minutes passed, then an hour. Yet here sat Mabel, only three paragraphs into this particular entry. She groaned aloud, digging the heel of her palm into an eye. For something that should be fantastic and magical, the information on the Fae was pretty boring, It was like the nerds who wrote the book hundreds of years ago didn’t know any exciting words; it was all very technical.

However, Mabel would not be deterred. Sitting up straight, she took a large sip of her tea, then breathed deeply to try and focus her mind.

“Okay, Mabel, you can do this! Dipper would read all these books to save you, so you’re gonna do it to save him!” She slammed a fist onto the wooden surface with determination, causing the collection of books to bounce slightly. “It’s study-montage time!”

=========

Mabel snapped awake in a heartbeat, jostled into consciousness by the sensation of her face slapping into the pages of the book. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she glanced over at the clock on her nightstand, waiting for it to come into focus.

“FIVE MINUTES?!” she exclaimed. She had only been studying for _five minutes_ when she passed out. She groaned, bonking herself on the forehead with a loosely clenched fist. “Why can’t I stay awake to read this junk?! Why is it all so _boring_?!”

Then, she remembered the charm Winkelmeyer had given to her. She fished it out of the backpack, draping it around her neck. Well, she didn’t feel any smarter about the Fae. Maybe reading with it on would work?

One paragraph later, she decided that the charm may indeed have been bogus. All she knew right now was that the Hedge was the passageway between the Middle and the Never-ever (the realm of the Fae), as well as the fact that Fae, for whatever reason, used contracts or deals as currency. And she had read all of that before she slipped into snooze mode, so the charm wasn’t doing anything new.

“Ugh, dangit all! Nothing helps! If I could get one of these magical poopheads to help me understand this stuff, I’d make a deal with them,” she groused. The charm around her neck instantly thrummed as soon as the words ‘make a deal’ left her lips. Afraid she had activated some sort of self defense mechanism, she ripped it from her neck and tossed it across the room, at Dipper’s bed.

“Did I hear you say ‘ _I’d make a deal_ ’?” a high pitched voice inquired, decidedly male. Smoke plumed from the twisted nails, filling up the space between her bed and her twin’s, and then with an unseen and unfelt breeze, blew away to reveal a creature Mabel had never seen before.

He stood roughly six, six and a half feet tall, with a wiry, almost skeletal build. His face looked like the portrayals of elves she had seen in cartoons and movies, and his eyes were such a piercing green they were almost yellow. His sharp features were framed by a shaggy mane of black hair that grew from shoulders to the top of his head. Long ears, almost like those of a rabbit, poked out from that tousled hair.

His skin was a dark, dark gray, to the point that it was almost black. He was nude, but a shaggy coat of fur that matched the hair on his head covered everything from waist to ankle, where long slender feet ended in a set of cloven hooves. A long tail, similar to a donkey’s, swished behind him, as his lips split into a wicked, blindingly white grin.

“If you’re looking to make a deal with a Fae, my dear,” he spoke, bowing at the waist, “then allow me to be of service.” Extending an arm tipped with a long, slender hand and almost equally long fingers, he did a small flourish.

“Puck, of the Fae, at your service.”

-End Chapter 3-


	4. Chapter Four

All she could do, at first, was stare in disbelief. His grin never wavered, nor did he blink. It was… unnerving. After what seemed to be an endless silence, she found her voice.

“Puck? _THE_ Puck?” she asked.

“Ooh, it’s so good to know that I haven’t been forgotten while bound to that ugly, infernal charm!” the Fae proclaimed, pressing his palms together in front of his chest.

“I thought you were supposed to be like, a satyr? Or maybe some sorta blonde elfy guy, like in that old cartoon where the statues come to life and fight crime?” As the words left her lips, the creature’s smile faded from delight, to mild annoyance, and then an outright frown.

“I despise the blasted forms of entertainment you children enjoy nowadays. Honestly, you disappear for a few centuries and people go getting what you look like all wrong,” he mumbled, to no one in particular, resting one hand on the inside of an elbow, and his chin in the other, legs crossing underneath himself as he sat down in the air. Mabel leaned to one side to verify and yes, indeed, he was hovering about three feet off the floor. He shrugged, slowly rotating in the air until he was upside down to match her gaze.

“Then again, I suppose it’s a bit difficult to stay upset with a bunch of mortals who can’t get the way a shapeshifter looks correct. I never really even let Old Billy see me like this,” he mused, stretching as he turned upright once more. “Oh it feels so good to be out of that infernal thing, now if you could just unbind me and let me be on my merry way-”

“Old Billy?” Mabel inquired, an eyebrow perked. Puck narrowed his chartreuse stare at her.

“Yes, you know, William? William Shakespeare? I helped him write a play once, and I may have fudged a few details here or there in order to keep some of the secrets of the Fae safe, but all the same, that does nothing for our situation. Now then, you mentioned a deal?” He made to bat his eyes at her, long lashes emphasizing it. It would have been a tiny bit alluring, but one eyelid was roughly a fifth of a second behind the other, which threw out an uncanny valley vibe.

“Well, I need to figure out how all this Fae junk works,” she said, motioning at the books. “And I would just love it if it wasn’t so _boring_ to read about! Nerds dunno how to spice up their words when they wanna describe stuff. Until they start writing all their silly stories and whatnot, that is,” she noted.

“So you need help understanding Fae policy is all, you say? That’s simple!” Puck said, waving a long-fingered hand dismissively. “I can most certainly help, in exchange for my free-”

“I _also_ need help finding out which one of you buttfaces stole my bro bro,” she interrupted. “And for that matter, I’ll need help figuring out how to cross through the Hedge to get him back after that, and how to get us both back alive and well!”

Puck’s expression once again went from delighted to sour, ears laying flat, tail swishing with an irritated flick. He crossed his arms, spindly fingers drumming on the top of one bicep. His gaze never wavered, locked on Mabel’s as though she would try to pounce on and devour him, should he show weakness.

“And what would be in it for me?” Ah, yes, there it was; the negotiation. Mabel had done this before many a time, just not with a Fae. She considered her next words very carefully.

“Well, if I _were_ to make any sort of agreement, should a certain, handsome, trickster Fae want to help me on my quest for rescue and vengeance, I would probably be open to suggestion,” she stated. The corner of Puck’s mouth turned up in a small, somewhat impressed grin.

“I want my _freedom_ ,” he spat, the words laced with a little venom, though none directed at her. He jabbed a finger towards the charm, now laying on the unused bed across the attic. “I want to be freed of the dreadful binding that I have to that chunk of poison so that I may return home!”

Mabel tilted her head, staring at the charm. Standing up, she crossed the room, edging her way around the hovering Fae, before plucking the pendant off of the bed and spinning around. Her eyes shifted from twisted nails, to Puck, then back to the nails again. She lifted it a little higher.

“Whaddaya mean, poison? It’s just metal,” she said, giving it a poke. Puck shrank back reflexively as the twisted nails swung a bit.

“It’s _iron_ ,” he said matter-of-factly. “Iron is toxic to Fae. Most of us can’t stand to physically touch it without writhing in agony, or dying, save for gnomes. Some of those little cretins found some sort of fancy workaround, but the ones that did that got themselves banished from the Never-Ever, for fear that they might use this newfound knowledge to wage war on the Seelie and Unseelie courts.” Then, for the first time, Mabel saw him blink. “Allegedly, anyhow. It’s unknown if they really did find a way to free themselves from the common aversion most of us share.”

“How the heck did you let yourself get bound to something if it’s so dangerous to you?” she asked as she sat back down on her mattress, eyes wide with wonder as Puck’s stare found hers again.

“That’s not really that interesting of a story, I’m afraid,” he sighed. “A few centuries ago, I was taking some years to do some sightseeing after I helped Old Billy write his little play. While I’m out and about, I find a delectable offering of honeyed milk, and accept it! Little did I know, I had been bamboozled; a witch had left it out with the intent of capturing a Fae, in order to trap us into making a deal with her.

“A witch? I thought witches weren’t really all that bad,” Mabel questioned. Puck shrugged.

“Most of them I knew, no, but this one was almost the stereotype to the letter; she cackled, she had a wart or two, and she envied what prettier women had, that she did not,” he went on. Mabel perked a brow at him. “The attention of handsome men.” She nodded, understanding now.

“That last bit is what led our paths together, via that infernal, hexed milk. Once I downed the bowl, I had swallowed along with it the magic she had placed on it. A simple little thing that, given time and effort, I could get out of, but she was quick on the draw. As soon as I was paralyzed, she set about making a circle, and binding me to that horrific thing you hold in your hands.

“So I asked, what could I do to convince her to free me? She said she had her eye on a particular human male, a rather handsome nobleman. She wanted me to twist his heart, and make him fall in love with her.”

“Eeewww, that’s just wrong,” Mabel objected. Puck leaned in close with a derisive sniff.

“You reek of one who has meddled with Cupid’s influence yourself, young child, so I would not be so fast to judge,” he retorted. She shrank back on the bed, feeling sheepish.

“Yeah, but I learned it was wrong,” she mumbled in self defense.

“At any rate, where was I? Ah, yes! So, this witch wants me to make this man fall in love with her. To be honest, I couldn’t blame her, the man was delicious looking. There was just one major problem, as it turns out, and it wasn’t that he was already married.

“Apparently, the man was a bit of a lech; he slept around, very unfaithful to his current wife. Who, might I add, was a bit unhinged from dealing with that. By the time I had gathered the things I needed to shift his desires towards my captor, his bride had poisoned him.” Mabel gasped. “Yes, I know, makes it very hard to finish a job when the target has up and shed his mortal coil.”

“He _died?_ ” Mabel reiterated. Puck nodded.

“That does tend to happen when you’ve drank tea steeped from Nightshade. Regardless of the fact that I was innocent in this, the witch took offense and insisted I was trying to back out of my end of the deal we had made; his heart for my freedom. And so, she left me bound to that horrendous, toxic thing as she went on to be burned at the stake after cursing the newly widowed noblewoman and being discovered.”

Mabel regarded the necklace in her hands, turning the nails over, thumb sliding down the groove between the coiled metal. A thoughtful frown was plastered on her face as she mulled things over in her head.

“So, if you’ve been stuck lashed to this thing, why haven’t you made a deal with anybody else to get free, yet?” She rolled the double helix over in her hands, glancing up to Puck. “I mean, certainly you’ve had chances!”

“Well, child, deals with the Fae, like myself, are not only susceptible to wordplay, but can also be extremely literal. The witch’s final words to me, before she locked me away, were ‘May you rot here, unseen, until you find somebody else to deal with you.’ And given the nature of how my magic works, I was stuck.” He spread his hands wide, fingers splayed. “Nobody else has offered, until this moment, to make any sort of deal with a Fae until you did. So, I have been stuck here.”

“Like, in Gravity Falls, this whole time?”

“Oh goodness, no! I started in France,” he explained. “That little pair of twisted-nails-made-prison has changed hands so many times since I was linked to it, it’s no longer amusing. I had only been with Winkelmeyer for the last two decades or so. At least his shop was an amusing place to be in.” Puck giggled, the noise a tad bit more malice filled than Mabel was comfortable with. “Oh, the last time he had a bottle break, before your visit today, was much more exciting! Bottled oozes cause such a ruckus when their prisons break.”

Mabel shook her head a bit, now uncertain if she wanted to trust Puck based on the idea that he would laugh at poor old man Winkelmeyer being attacked by a big old goo-pile that wanted to eat him.

 _Mabel, we need him_ , one version of her spoke in her mind. _He’s the only one we know that could potentially make all of this stuff easier to understand!_

 _ **Yeah, but how do you know he won’t try to twist your words, and screw you out of your deal the moment he has a chance?**_ said another version of herself. _**He keeps trying to bargain for his freedom desperately, he’d probably try to bone you on your wording.**_

_Yeah but why would he be malicious if we make an honest deal with him?_

**_Because he might be as bad as the ones that took your bro bro._ **

_We don’t know that!_

**_You can’t take that risk!_ **

“Shut up you two!” she spat, before clamping a hand over her mouth as Puck fixed her with a confused stare. “Uh, hehe, sorry, sometimes my internal monologue leaks.”

Puck shrugged at that, hovering up about another foot in the air before leaning over, until his eyes were staring directly into her own. Ears twitching, tail flicking, his expression was hard to read.

“So, then?” he asked. “What will it take to get me free of that wretched thing in your hands?”

Mabel mulled it over in her head, frowning thoughtfully as she used her thumb to roll the imprisoning charm about her palm. She let her eyes travel from it to the Fae hovering in the attic, her mind going a mile a minute.

“It won’t be easy,” she murmured, to which he waved dismissively.

“Oh please, humans always want such simple things, I assure you it won’t-” he began, but she held up a hand to silence him.

“Like I told you earlier, in case you’ve forgotten, I think my brother was nabbed by the Fae. At least, that’s what I can gather from what the unicorns and gnomes ended up telling me,” she went on. “We were at a national park a short ways north of town, and he got yanked off by these purple bramble vines.”

Puck’s eyes widened, and he leaned in closer. He took a long, heavy sniff, then scrunched up his nose. Mabel glared, clearly unimpressed.

“You…. you’ve been touched, by a creature of the Mindscape, yes?” His question made the hair on the nape of her neck stand on end, a shudder going up her spine. “I thought I had sensed that earlier, when I caught a hint of Cupid on you. Your brother, was he similarly touched?”

“More than me, even,” she lamented. “He was possessed by this triangle guy, name of-”

“Bill Cipher,” Puck growled. His tail flicked in anger. “That little twit managed to break through into this world, I take it? Did your brother assist him in this?” The anger in his voice continued to deepen, the shaggy coat of hair on his head and shoulders ruffling.

“N-no! I, uh, got fooled into helping, actually,” she said, her gaze downcast. She was suddenly very interested in the back of her own hand. “But me and Dipper’s Great Uncles managed to get rid of him. It wasn’t easy, but he’s gone.” She wiggled back a little further on her bed.

“Oh, I see.” At once, all of the malice in Puck’s voice was gone. Mabel twisted her face at him.

“Wait, how do _you_ know who Bill Cipher is?”

“There isn’t a Fae alive that hasn’t heard of the monster that destroyed the Mindscape. That world used to be a beautiful place, but he and his little cult of fans did a lot of irreparable damage to their realm. They tried to cross into the Never-Ever, after that, but they were held at bay. Apparently his little band of misfits saw fit to try it on your world after they got locked out of ours.” Mabel only nodded at that.

“If you guys don’t like the Mindscape weirdos, then why would a Fae take Dipper? I mean, if I smell like the Mindscape, then he should basting in Mindscape stank.” Puck’s expression became stern.

“There are some Fae who have considered waging wars on other realms, and it would benefit them to have access to the Mindscape. It allows them another way of travel to and from these other dimensions.” He spun around to face the door. “Others still would probably find the scent of corruption irresistible. There are Fae of certain courts that find that sort of thing alluring, and also potentially useful in the same manner as the first set I described.”

“But Dipper can’t get them to the Mindscape, he’s just been possessed by Bill once before!” Mabel retorted, gesticulating wildly.

“Sweet child, a doorway once opened is always there. You may fill in the hole in the wall, brick by brick, but the scars left are visible. The door is simply sealed, waiting to be opened.” Puck’s ears drooped as he stared at the floor for a moment.

Mabel was panicked; her brother had been stolen for use as some sort of drug and/or gateway?! What the heck?! What was _wrong_ with the Fae?!

“So, you’re telling me that my brother is being used as a door, or a bong, or possibly both?!” Puck nodded sadly. “Okay, you want your freedom? I’m gonna lay it out for ya!”

Puck gasped with delight, leaning forward.

“I, Mabel Pines, do solemnly swear upon my word that if you, Puck, of the Fae, help me get my brother free from the clutches of the Fae in the Never-Ever by helping me cross the Hedge, and help us both return home, alive and well, without any sort of threat on our tails, I will grant to you your freedom. In order to accomplish this, I will require you to teach me how to handle any sort of threat we might find on the other side.” She fixed the grey skinned creature with a level, stern stare, thrusting her hand out. “Do we have a deal?”

Puck hung on her every word, ears tilting this way or that as she spoke. His eyes seemed to unfocus, lips splitting into a mischievous grin. A hand with unnaturally smooth skin wrapped itself around her own, fingers gripping tightly. She felt a thrum of energy course through her arm, shaking all the way through her core. She grit her teeth, sweat beading on her head as the Fae shook her hand. When he spoke, the word seemed to come from inside her own skull, echoing throughout the room.

“Deal!”

=========

The first thing that Dipper was aware of, was that his head hurt more than it had ever hurt before. He rolled to one side and sat up, leaning over to retch over the side of the very stiff, very cold surface he was laying on top of. Once his stomach had finished deciding to attempt to turn itself inside out, he managed to crack open an eye, trying to recollect his thoughts.

He remembered wanting to talk to Mabel, that he was going to try to smooth things out there. Even if she ended up hating him, he was at least going to come clean, and tell her that-

“Oh fuck,” he mumbled, a sharp pain striking through the inside of his skull, causing him to dry heave again. His train of thought was derailed, and he tried to reorient himself by focusing on his surroundings.

Everything was white, with streaks of blue or silver cutting through in twisting, randomized patterns. The room was large, the ceilings vaulted, with columns lining the walls. The material seemed to be some sort of polished marble. Glancing downwards, he found that the surface he had been laying on, unconscious, was sculpted of the same material. It was cold to the touch, almost unnaturally so.

With a slow, but determined movement, he swiveled around to the side opposite of his recent stomach emptying fit, standing up with a hunched, wobbly posture. His feet instantly tried to pull away from the floor, as it was freezing to the touch as well. He hobbled about for a minute, trying to remember just how he got here. Absentmindedly, he raised one hand to scratch at his arm, and then immediately flinched at his own touch. He looked at his forearm, finding it covered in angry looking, bruised slashes. They were all scabbed over, and didn’t appear to be infected so much as irritated.

“What the…?”

All at once, he remembered what had happened at the park. He saw it all happening backwards; Mabel’s grip slipping as the brambles tugged him away, the way they had slithered from the bushes and snatched up his ankles, and then before that was…

He had been talking to himself, giving himself a pep talk as he went down the checklist of how he needed to do this talk with Mabel (old habits died hard, okay?), and then out of nowhere, there had been somebody else. Somebody he didn’t recognize, but he knew he had reason to fear them.

Trying to call up the picture of their face in his mind’s eye made his headache worse. He knew they had been attractive, somehow. Unnaturally so. But half of that attractiveness had been easily linked to the fact that they had a gaze like a predatory animal. They had been staring at him like he was a four course meal. Just as his brain started to piece together their face, he felt his head throb again, causing him to stumble against the slab he’d been on, asleep.

“Wh-where, where am I, how d-did I get here?” he managed to blurt, to no one. Or, that was what he thought until he felt a pair of hands wrap around his skull from behind himself, yanking him backwards onto the stone table.

“Where you are,” a voice emanated, “is of no consequence to you. You were brought here by me, Gatekeeper.” Try as he might, Dipper couldn’t open his eyes to look at his assailant, nor could he muster the strength to struggle. He also tried to think of what the voice had called him, Gatekeeper? What did that mean? A hungry chuckle echoed through the chamber. “Now then, let’s see about getting that doorway opened, shall we?”

The last thing he remembered before passing out, was a sensation not unlike that of a spike of ice had being driven between his eyes.

-End Chapter 4-


	5. Chapter Five

“Remember, concentrate, and then extend your will and focus it into the form you desire,” Puck instructed. He was hovering roughly three feet behind Mabel while they trained in a clearing in the woods, his posture miming that of somebody splayed over the arms of an armchair.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard ya the first time, dangit,” she grumped. In her mind’s eyes, Mabel thought of everything fire that she could. The flame of a candle, a campfire, a torch, the fiery breath of a dragon. Gathering up her will as she focused on these things, she thrust out a hand, forcing the energy she felt from these images through the nerves of her arm, down through her fingertips. There was a tiny spark, a sizzle, and a puff of smoke. She frowned.

“I don’t think I can do this magic stuff, Puck. We’ve been out here all morning trying to do this and nothing works! I can’t do this echolocation-”

“Evocation!” he corrected.

“ _Evocation_ magic,” she finished. “And every minute we’re out here doing this, we’re wasting time that I could be spending on getting through the Hedge and getting my brosauce back!”

The night prior, after making their deal, Puck had let Mabel fall asleep so they could begin practicing in the morning. He had insisted she learn how magic worked, as it would be one of the few weapons available to her in the Never-Ever, considering she couldn’t pack very much along.

They had attempted enchantments, earlier in the day, for several hours to no avail. Then came the idea that maybe summoning or, even necromancy, were her forte, but all she had managed to summon was an angry swarm of wasps when she threw a rock in frustration, hitting a log housing their nest. Puck’s next suggestion had been evocation, calling on the elements to do her dirty work for her. But after three hours, she had managed little more than the puff of smoke she had just accomplished.

“Yes, well, practice makes perfect! You nearly had a flame conjured there!” he insisted, his encouraging tone almost mocking. The glare she gave him was matched by his jovial grin, ears perked expectantly. “One more attempt and then we move on, I promise.”

With a defeated sigh, Mabel resigned herself to one final attempt. She braced her feet shoulder width apart and once again set about trying to call forth the mental image and heat of a fire. She pictured a raging fire burning in her chest, holding all the anger and frustration at how her brother had been so violently taken from her. The fury that she would direct at those responsible when she confronted them. Her arm shook as she flexed her muscles, focusing all of these feelings and emotions, and then gave a mighty forward thrust.

There was a sudden rush of heat and a thunderous explosion, knocking her back several feet. The edges of her sweater’s sleeve had caught fire, which was quickly starting to burn into the skin of her wrist. She wailed, slapping at the flames, panicked as a sound of throaty, mirthful laughter erupted a few feet away.

“Pr-progress!” Puck managed to choke out between laughs, hugging around his midsection as he curled into a fetal position, stricken with another fit of giggles. Mabel glowered at him, unimpressed. “A natural, if I do say so myself! You’ll get the hang of setting yourself ablaze in no time!” His voice’s pitch rose as he spoke the last half of that sentence, leading into another round of loud, roaring laughter. Mabel cleared her throat.

“Okay, look, I’m not a fan of how that went and normally I’d be all gung-ho to try it again,” she insisted, “if I had the time to get it right. But I don’t. So, either we move onto something else or you can kiss your freedom bye bye. It won’t take me but three seconds to chuck these nails into the lake, to let’em sink to the bottom, and then you’ll be stuck here forever.”

“You would not _dare_ ,” the Fae demanded, his laughter suddenly gone. His expression of anger was petrifying; he seemed to stare straight through her, or as though he could undo her very being in an instant. For all she knew, he probably could. However, the fact that he was wasting her time on this, for his own amusement, was enough to cause her old fashioned stubbornness to kick in.

“Try me! What are you gonna do, huh? No more than you did to the witch who left you stuck here,” she challenged. In the next second, she came to regret that as he had suddenly loomed over her, eyes crackling with green energy. He roared, causing her hair to fly back, and her eyes to water. He raised a hand as if to grasp at her throat, but she remained frozen in place. Around her neck hung that very charm, which his hand now hovered mere millimeters from touching. His hand was shaking, his mistake apparently realized moments before disaster.

“Were you not protected by that horrific thing I would make you regret your hollow threats,” he snarled. She blew a small raspberry at him.

“I’m not afraid of you. I wasn’t afraid of a big evil dream demon. I sprayed him right in the face with spraypaint.” His hand retracted, and she perked an eyebrow. “Besides, my neck might have iron around it, but the rest of me sure doesn’t.” She reached up and tapped him on the nose with a smirk. “Boop.”

Frowning, Puck floated back off of his feet and hovered off to the side, ears folded back. She recognized that look all too well; a called bluff. Her smirk deepened to a grin at that. He was irritating to deal with, certainly, but he meant her no direct harm, at the very least. After he simmered for another minute or so, she cleared her throat.

“So, uh, is there any other magic I might be able to do? Since all of these other choices were no goes,” she asked. Puck glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, before sighing and hovering back over.

“The only thing we haven’t tried, so far, are sigils,” he explained. He held out a hand, and a short branch hovered over into his grasp. With it, he began to draw patterns in the dirt at Mabel’s feet. “When you draw a sigil, you are essentially imbuing a symbol with a tiny piece of your will, and magical power.” He paused to meet her eyes and make sure she was paying attention. “And, I promise you, despite the difficulty you’ve been having with it, there is a deep wellspring of magic inside of you.”

She twisted her expression into a doubtful frown, but nodded. If a magical creature was going to tell her she had magical talent, despite all of her current shortcomings, she might as well take his word for it. Besides, she had read somewhere before that Fae weren’t allowed to tell outright lies.

“This,” he went on, scribing a circle with a few jagged lines crossing through it, “is one of many sigils for fire based magic.” Mabel raised her hand. With a sigh, Puck pressed a palm to his forehead. “You don’t have to do that, just ask!”

“Why do you keep making me do fire based stuff? I mean, fire’s cool don’t get me wrong. It just seems counterproductive to my personal well being.”

“Fire, although violent and unpredictable, is a strong and simple element to learn control over. Besides, somebody with a passion as fiery as your own should be able to manipulate flames with ease, once they find their specialty.” He tapped the stick in his hand just above the marking he had made on the ground. “This particular sigil should typically only cause a small spark, enough to light a small fire for camping or something of the sort.

“When you create a sigil, you will feel a tiny tug on your reserves. That same energy you felt coursing through your arm before that spectacular-” he explained, pausing at the sound of disapproval she made at his wording, “-er, attempt a few minutes ago. You have to be careful with sigil based magic, because when you sever a tiny portion of that power to create the magic, you do not get it back until you’ve activated its power and the sigil is spent.”

“So, like, I make a bunch of scribbles at once but I can only do so many at a time, and after one is used I have to wait to recharge?” she asked. Puck nodded.

“A bit of a simple way to put it but I suppose whatever works. I often forget how often you children need things put into easier terminology.”

“Why do you keep calling me a child?” she demanded, crossing her arms. “I’m nineteen years old! I’ma friggin’ adult.”

“Your entire race is one of children,” Puck said, his tone laced with dismissal. “You rarely live to reach one century of age, and as a whole you’ve only been around for a couple hundred thousand years.” He fixed those piercing green eyes on hers. “As far as the Fae are concerned, you’re a race of infants.”

Mabel rolled her eyes, unconvinced, and picked up a stick of her own. Concentrating, she doodled a smaller version of Puck’s fire sigil beside his own. While she scratched it into the dirt, she focused on the effort to put her will into it in the same manner that she had tried to power it into the blast earlier. When she drew the final line, a chill ran up her spine, her eyes widening. Puck made a sound of delight.

“Ooh, you felt that, did you? Good! It means it worked. Now then, when you wish to activate the sigil, you simply reconnect your will to it, focus, and-” With a snap of his fingers, his sigil lit up orange and burst into a tiny puff of fire. It burned for a few seconds, but without any sort of fuel, went out. “See, simple! Now you try.”

Mabel focused her mind on the energy she had spent to create the magical symbol, taking a deep breath. This was going to work, dangit. She had to be able to be good at some magic, right? Puck said she had magic in her! Concentrating, she held out a hand, bracing the tips of her middle finger and thumb together. Right as she made to activate the spell, her phone rang out.

“Dammit I don’t have time for all this,” she grumbled, digging her phone out, concentration on the magic lost. Tapping the answer icon, she pressed the phone to her ear. “Yeah?”

“Well, hello to you too, darling,” Chad’s voice rang out. She pinched her fingers of her free hand against the bridge of her nose, sighing.

“Heya, Chad. What’s up?” Inside her head, that council of Mabels was once again demanding she break it off with him, and she quickly shushed them all.

“I got into town about an hour ago, and I haven’t been able to find you anywhere! I was told you went hiking,” he replied. His voice carried that honeyed tone that she had once admired, but now found self centered. “I was hoping you’d be done admiring nature soon so we could spend some time together. Our last phone call was rudely interrupted by, well, _miscommunication._ ”

“Look, it’s really not a good time for this, okay? I need to talk to you, but it’s gonna have to wait. I’m busy,” she stated.

“Mabel, my dear, I don’t very much appreciate being made second banana,” he complained. She wished dearly he could hear her eyes rolling. “Especially not to that demanding brother of yours.”

“Look, Dipper isn’t even here, that’s the problem, okay? I’m trying to find a way to get in touch with him.” Off to the side, she saw Puck perk an eyebrow at her phrasing. She waved him off; she wasn’t lying to Chad, not really. “And he’s family, so I’d really appreciate it if you quit badmouthing him.”

“Oh please, that jealous little worm has been a thorn in the side of our relationship since the beginning,” Chad spat through the receiver. “You seem to act as though you’re trying to decide between dating your own _brother_ , or me. And, if you’re going to keep putting him before me, maybe you and I just aren’t meant to be!” Mabel felt heat rise on her face as anger started to build.

“Oh good, now we’re on the same friggin’ page!” she shouted. “Yanno what, if you aren’t interested in helping me keep things patched up with my brother-who, might I add, has never been as demanding as you-then we’re done! Through! Finished!”

“Mabel, consider your next words very carefully,” he growled. Oh ho ho, no, he did _not_ just try to tell her what to do with her mood!

“I’ve considered them for the last three days, and you know what? Here they are; _GOOD. BYE._ ” She hung up as angrily as she could muster (smartphones made it so hard to emote with that. She was gonna have to get herself a flip phone for nostalgic slams), and turned her focus back towards the drawing she had scrawled in the dirt. When she noticed a tiny tug between herself and the sigil, she snapped her fingers.

What happened next, made both Fae and girl alike scatter backwards with fright. Mabel’s sigil lit up, first glowing orange, then an eye-searing yellow into a blinding white as a low pitched whine grew. In the span of half a second, there was a deafening BOOM, coupled with a gout of flame that shrieked skywards, a column some twenty feet high, like a jet engine had been buried in the ground.

Both Mabel and Puck found themselves staring at the scorch mark on the ground. A small crater ringed where her sigil had been, the ground smoldering. At once they both turned to stare at one another, and a huge grin spread across Puck’s face.

“Well then, I guess we know what magic _you_ excel at!”

=========

The next several hours were a blur of activity; Mabel insisted that she needed to buy supplies, but when they stopped in front of the craft store, Puck was, to say the least, not impressed.

“This does not look like the sort of place one would visit for the acquisition of magical supplies,” he mumbled. Mabel waved a hand at him.

“I know what I’m doin’, you just make sure nobody can see you okay?” she insisted. With a roll of his eyes, Puck’s gray and black body faded to translucent, and then invisible, eyes and mouth still visible, not unlike the chesire cat of Alice in Wonderland.

“Very well, then,” he stated, and with a blink he vanished. Mabel shrugged, and stepped into the store. Grabbing a basket, she made a beeline for her favorite aisle.

Her first stop was the markers, and she made careful consideration to grab a pack of them that were scented, in addition to a few enamel paint pens. Next she traversed her way over to the scrapbooking area, finding the ‘do it yourself’ stamp pads, which she grabbed several of, as well as an inkpad. From there, she went on to find the blank sticker sheets. She giggled and hummed the entire way, and after she had grabbed what she had dubbed necessities, she continued to browse for an hour, grabbing other, random craft supplies, including a few new skeins of yarn (one could never have too much knitting fuel, she proclaimed).

After checking out, she headed straight for the Mystery Shack, humming happily all the way. Once they were out of the town proper, Puck materialized in a puff of smoke off to one side, where he began to rummage through the bags, scrutinizing everything.

“Ink, tubes filled with ink and paint, rubber pads, sticky paper, fluffy thread? What does any of this have to do with magic?!” he demanded. “And these,” he went on, pulling a package of puffy, glittery stickers from the bag. Those had, admittedly, been an impulse buy at the register. “These aren’t even _relevant_ , these silly little caricatures of cats and unicorns and turtles.”

“You don’t need a reason for glitter stickers, man!” she insisted, yanking them out of his hand and opening the plastic that held them captive. “You just get’m because they’re pretty!”

“Yes, well, the beauty of the tiny plastic sparkles on them aside, I fail to see why you would waste time on-” he began, but Mabel stifled him as she peeled one from the sheet and tapped it to his forehead with a ‘bwomp!’. His eyes swiveled up, trying to look at the rainbow-pelted cat he now wore. “What was that for?!”

“You were staring at it the most, I thought you liked it?” He frowned a bit, then shrugged. “Would you rather have the turtle? I don’t mind.”

“N-no, I like it, but I mean… what is it in exchange for?” he asked. Mabel frowned.

“Nothing? It’s just a little gift, dude,” she told him. “Like, an offering, but I don’t expect anything in return.”

“You would just… give me a sticker?”

“Heck, I’ll give ya the whole thing, they were only seventy cents,” she said, handing him the package. His eyes darted between the offered bag of stickers and her face, as if expecting treachery. Cautiously, he pinched at the corner of the package and delicately retrieved it.

“And, this is mine? For nothing?”

“Yeah, sure! Everybody should get stickers!” she said without a second thought. When she looked over, she realized he had lagged behind, and was standing in place, staring at the gift he now held. “Puck? You okay?”

He nodded, then tucked the package behind himself. When his hand came back into view, the stickers were gone. Before she started to question it, Mabel reminded herself that he was a creature of magic, and that it was pointless to question where the stickers had gone.

As they walked, Puck started to describe methods of self protection. “Keeping that dreadful thing around your neck is a start, but you’ll want more than just that,” he insisted. “A pouch of salt for making a circle of protection would be ideal, that or some chalk. Both would be best. I highly doubt they sell it nowadays, but a suit of chainmail would also be very helpful.” He looked over at her, questioningly. “ _Do_ they sell chainmail?”

“Yeah but it costs an arm and a leg,” Mabel replied with a shrug. “I don’t wanna be weighed down by that bizz anyhow, I’m already trying to travel light!”

“Yes, I suppose you would need all of your limbs,” Puck agreed, causing her to snort. Whether he was joking, or didn’t recognize the idiom was entirely unknown, and equally entertaining. “No, really. The Never-Ever is treacherous to outsiders, you’ll need both legs to run!”

The fact that he was serious made her laugh harder, to which he rolled his eyes. “Honestly, I make morbid humor at your expense and you get upset, but when I’m serious you think it’s a joke.”

“Oh man, I’ll have to explain some modern phrases to you after you teach me all the symbol thingies I can use,” she noted, trying to stifle her giggles. “You know, for my sigils.”

Puck drew the next few of those in the air, with his fingers. There were symbols for earth, fire, water, and air, as well as one for spirit, and those were the simple ones. There were more complicated sigils that incorporated those in various mixes to create different effects, like changing the polarization of gravity, freezing water, or even melting stones into slag. And if what he told her was true, this wasn’t even brushing the surface.

“Uh oh.” Mabel stared at the Mystery Shack’s parking lot, where she spied a familiar, green muscle car. One she had ridden in for several dates, over the last few months. “Why is he still here, I thought I told him to leave me alone,” she groused, glancing over to Puck. “I got this, you can go enjoy the stickers for now.”

With a nod and a puff of smoke, her companion vanished, leaving her to march up to the Shack alone. She steeled herself with a deep breath, then approached. When the clomping sound of her boots on the porch announced her presence, she heard voices inside the gift shop hush before she stepped in to find Melody chatting with a rather handsome man. One with blonde hair, green eyes, and a perfectly pressed shirt.

“Mabel, there you are!” Melody said, with a twinge of apprehension in her voice. “I tried telling your friend here you were out today but he insisted on waiting for you, right here.” Her eyes narrowed. “All day long.”

“You and I have to-” Chad began, but Mabel cut him off.

“I said good bye, you jerk. Go away.” She went to sidestep him, to enter the house, but he held out an arm to impede her path. She felt that bubble of anger rising in her chest.

“ _Nobody_ breaks up with _me,_ ” he insisted, eyes furious. Mabel stared at him, unyielding. The bag of supplies in her hand dropped to the floor as her fingers flexed, then clenched.

“Chad, if you do not get the hell out of this building and out of my life, I am going to break your nose,” she swore. One eyebrow lifted, unconvinced. She felt her arm tense.

“Hey, Mabel, you have a good time on your hi-uh oh,” Soos said, stepping into the room. “No fighting in the Shack, guys! Please, this old place might fall over if Mabel throws a punch in here.” Chad swiveled to stare at Soos, a smirk of confidence on his face.

“She isn’t that str-” he started, reaching for her, but she swiftly made him regret that. Before his hand was on her, she had his wrist in a vicegrip and she twisted, pinning his arm behind his back. Over his shouts of protest she led him out the door, and onto the porch, aiming him at his car.

“I said _GET. OUT!_ ” she commanded, planting a foot against his backside and shoving as she released his arm. He flew the few feet between porch and car, bouncing off the hood and onto the gravel with a pained grunt. “If I see you here again, your pretty nose’s spot on your weirdly symmetrical face is forfeit! Leave me alone, stay away from my family!”

Before he could protest, she slammed the door to the gift shop, then locked it before collapsing to the floor with a deep, heaving sigh. Melody and Soos were both staring at her, impressed, and she could do no more than shrug, a weak smile on her face. Soos stepped over to help her up.

“Mabel, dawg, that was intense,” he noted, and she chuckled weakly.

“Well, I broke up with him like, six hours ago over the phone. Guess he didn’t think I was serious,” she mumbled as she retrieved her bag of art supplies. “I’m gonna just go up to the attic and do some stuff to take my mind off that, okay?” Both Melody and Soos simply nodded, and off she went up the stairs.

For the next few hours, she scribbled out various sigils on the sticker sheets and cut them out, Puck scrutinizing her technique as she worked. He would advise her to straighten a line here, or close a shape there, or sometimes adjust the placement of where sigils overlapped. With every completed sigil, she felt that inner reserve of her magic grow shallower, bit by bit.

“So, uh, if I run out of magic while I’m making these,” she inquired, “what happens?”

“Think of it like this. Your magic power is like a well, yes?” She nodded. “And every bit of magic you put into a spell is dipped out, like a bucket of water. When the well runs dry, you have to dig deeper. In this case, the bottom of the well is your life force,” he explained. “Dig too deep and you run the risk of self destruction.”

“So, I guess I gotta make sure I don’t run out, huh?” Puck scoffed.

“Obviously. If you use all of your reserves empowering sigils, just activating them starts to dip into your life energy. As simple as they are, sigils are still a dangerous magic.” Mabel nodded sadly at his answer, lips pressed tightly together. She pushed the finished sigils away from herself, deciding to do more with them later. For now, she turned her attention towards the wand and walking staff.

“So, I got these from Winkelmeyer,” she noted, paying special attention to the wand. “Is there anything I can do with them?” Puck plucked the wand from her grasp and held it up against the light, twisting it this way and that as he looked over the lathe-spun wood.

“Well, as you’re not very good with evocation, the wand might not be of very much use,” he explained, “but the staff could be very useful. Carve a small sigil or two into it and it can be a handy weapon, or tool, in a bind.”

“What happens to a carved sigil if it’s activated, though?” Mabel asked. “Do I just have to recharge it again later, or something? I mean, it’s permanently there, right?”

“No,” Puck replied. “The energy of the spell will eat way at the wood of the staff and wear it down as though it were sanded away. However, on a staff the spell will be more directionally focused, making it a powerful-if temporary-choice of equipment.”

Mabel filed this information away for later, feeling drained both physically and magically for the moment. Yawning, she stretched out, grunting towards the end of it. She noticed Puck staring, as though concerned.

“What?”

“You need to sleep,” he said flatly. “Tomorrow we have to go through the Hedge.”

“Tomorrow, already?” she responded, incredulous. He fixed her with a unpleasant stare.

“Aren’t you the one who was groaning this morning about us wasting time?” he argued. “And besides, you were right.  Tomorrow morning you’ll have to fetch some last minute supplies. Maybe even some weapons,” he added. “You do have access to weapons, yes?”

Mabel’s gaze shifted to the wall over her bed, where a crossbow she had received several years prior from her great uncle Stanford was mounted against a plaque. A pleased grin was plastered on her face.

“Yeah, you could say that.” Her response was met with a satisfied nod from Puck.

“Excellent.” He floated to the center of the room, legs crossed in a somewhat meditative pose. “Get your rest, you’ll need all of your strength.”

Mabel nodded, yawning again as she threw back her covers and then tugged them back over herself, sprawled underneath the comforter.

“Hey, Puck?” she murmured, fighting off another yawn. She noticed his ears perking at his name. “Thank you, really. I couldn’t do this without you.” There was a second of uncomfortable silence.

“A deal is a deal,” he replied. She decided that was a good enough answer, rolling over.

 _Hang in there, Dipper_ , she thought. _I’m coming for you._

-End Chapter 5-


	6. Chapter Six

_Mabel, help me!_

She whirled around, surrounded by darkness on all sides, unable to discern the direction of the call for help.

“Dipper!”

_Mabel, please help me! If you can somehow hear me-_

“I don’t know where you are!” she cried, her eyes stinging as tears began to well up. “I can’t find you!” She spun in circles, trying to pinpoint his voice. Anytime it felt like she had zeroed in on him, her brother’s voice changed direction, coming from behind her. Every time she twisted she got a little more dizzy, and his voice grew louder.

If she tried to walk in a direction, her legs refused to budge. It was like she was waist deep in wet cement. She called out for her twin again, and his voice spun around her in the dark, coming from every conceivable direction at once, yelling for help. Overwhelmed, she collapsed to her hands and knees.

 _Leave him here_ , another voice said. It was alluring, appetizing even. If she could taste it, she thought, it would be sweet and thick. _He’s only getting in your way. Your life is better off without him._

“SHUT UP!” she shouted, hands clamping over her ears. “I am not letting anyone separate me from my brother! I love him!”

 _Yes_ , the voice insisted, _but should you?!_

“Every sister loves their brother,” she demanded. “He’s been my best friend for as long as we’ve been alive!”

_Best friend, yes. But what if one of you wanted something more, that you could never have?_

She felt her face twist into an odd expression. Something more? What was this weird, disembodied smooth talker suggesting? She lifted her head to look around, wiping a hand over her eyes.

“What the butt are you on about?” The voice chuckled, knowingly.

 _Poor, little, Shooting Star_ , it droned on. _So bright that she herself cannot see what’s going on?_ The use of the old nickname that Bill had referred to her with stirred up a bubbling sensation of anger. _One of you has had a desire, for more than what they’ve had, for awhile. If your own radiance was not blinding to yourself, maybe you would see._

“Shut up!” she shouted, the voice’s wordy attempt at an explanation only irritating her. “I don’t care about any of that junk, just gimme back my brother!”

_He is OURS._

The floor shifted underfoot, two green eyes along with a polished white smile opening beneath her. The mouth split open, a deafening laughter echoing through the surrounding area. She drove her hands over her ears again, screaming protests drowned out by the sound.

The next thing she felt was a sharp slap to the face.

Mabel squawked, flailing as she rolled from mattress to floor, tangled in bedsheets, hair disheveled. She lay there, half on the floor, half in the bed, eyes wide as her chest rose and fell with panicked breaths. Before her gaze could adjust and focus on the ceiling, Puck’s face popped over the edge of the bed.

“Oh, good, it worked,” he said, more to himself than her. “You were thrashing and screaming, a nightmare?” She nodded once, then her face twisted and she shook her head slowly. His ears twitched.

“It was… it was too real for that.” Untangling her legs from the sheets, she finished her flop onto the floor before sitting up, rubbing at a sleep-encrusted eye. “Dipper was yelling for help, but I couldn’t even move to find him, and then some other voice started to harass me and say some really weird stuff.”

“Weird how?” Puck asked. Mabel relayed what she could recall of the dream to him, of Dipper’s panicked words and the other cocky voice’s cryptic riddles, and he appeared to be hanging on her every word. When she was finished, he just nodded. “Yes, that seems a bit specific to be nothing more than a weird nightmare…”

“Whaddaya think it means?” she yawned. Puck frowned.

“It means that whatever took your brother doesn’t want you going after him,” he stated. Now it was her turn to frown. “But, that’s also a good sign.”

“How is me having rude dream invaders a good thing?” she asked, bewildered. Puck gave her a sly grin.

“Because if they’re trying to shake you of your desire to save him,” he chirped, “then they’re likely afraid you’ll succeed.” She nodded once, feeling a bit boosted from that. “I mean, I know we’re a race of gloaters, most full of self conceived importance, but we don’t usually try to scare people off the trail if we think we’ve already won.”

“Makes sense I guess,” she grumbled, still trying to wake up, the rush from her nightmare gone. She scratched at an itch under her arm while she grabbed a few items of clothing. “What kinda weather should I expect in this Never-Ever place?”

“Anything from sweltering heat to freezing cold,” Puck flatly droned, looking at his fingernails while he lay on the abandoned bed. She gave him a confused glance. “The Never-Ever is ruled over, by and large, by the Summer and Winter courts. Each court’s nature influences the weather in their domain, so while it might be comfortably warm in the territory of the Summer court, it could be pelting hail and freezing winds in Winter’s area.”

Mabel thought that over, grabbing a mixture of clothing that included a tee shirt, some cargo shorts, a pair of leggings, and a warm winter sweater. She might as well be ready for anything, she supposed. She wandered her way to the bathroom so she could shower, stealing the alone time for some reflection on not only what she faced ahead, but what the oddly familiar voice in her dream had told her.

 _What did that mean, ‘one of you wants more than what they have’?_ She frowned as she lathered her hair, steaming hot water pelting her shoulders, washing some of the physical tension away. _Dipper and I just miss being the Mystery Twins, is all. Sure I miss him, and I kinda just chose him over Chad, but Chad was being a farthole. But… what if it didn’t mean me?_

“Pfff, nah,” she said to herself. “Dipper’s weird but he’s not that weird. Don’t trust spooky, ominous dream voices, Mabel.” She nodded, rinsing her hair out thoroughly. “Especially ones that are trying to get rid of you.”

After finishing her grooming routine and drying off, she dressed herself, tying the sweater around her waist for the moment.  She brushed her hair out, then tied it back in a secure ponytail. As soon as she opened the door, there was Puck, hovering. She squeaked and jumped backwards, arms flailing to keep her balance.

“Are you about done freshening up, madam, or would you also like to select a dress for the ball?” he inquired, voice laced with sarcasm. “Looking your best for this journey is not required.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t take pride in my appearance, you butt-butt,” she groaned. “Besides, we gotta go do some last minute shopping remember? I gotta be presentable while we do that.”

“I guess that makes some modicum of sense,” the Fae admitted. “Also, in our hurry to learn your magical area of expertise, I forgot something important. Have you got anything of your sibling’s to use to track him with?”

“I… wha?” Mabel’s answer only cause him to groan.

“We need something to link to your brother’s essence, in order to find him. Like using a compass to discern north when you’re disoriented.” He fixed her with a bored stare. “Or did you plan on skipping around the treacherous landscape, calling out his name until he answers? Or ooh, maybe finding a map that says ‘kidnapped humans held here’!”

Mabel frowned, the desire to reply with her own bout of irritated sarcasm was drowned out by the realization that she didn’t have anything to link back to Dipper. She didn’t bring any of her gifts from him along, nor did he have anything left here at the Shack from his last stay. If anything all of his stuff would be-

“Aha!” she cried out, the realization perking her mood. “I don’t have any of his stuff, but I know where we can find a lot of it!”

=========

Mabel stared up at the enormous double doors before her, trying to recall the first time she had been here. Dipper had managed to get her, Candy, and Grenda invitations to the Northwest’s annual Ball. The girls had squabbled over an attractive foreign boy named Marius, which ultimately led to Grenda being the one who won his affection by being herself. Now they were engaged. She smiled fondly at the realization that none of that would have been possible if Dipper hadn’t come through for her and her friends.

Of course, he insisted the only reason any of them survived that night was Pacifica’s doing, but Mabel didn’t even remember there being a ghost. Then again, she didn’t remember Chad seeming like such a creep, either. Maybe, she realized, she should start listening to what her brother tried to tell her, more often, when it came to his worry over her well being.

“We’ll focus on that later,” she told herself, reaching up and pushing on a button. Bells chimed on the other side of the door, followed by the sounds of a scuffle and raccoon chatter. Eventually, the door noisily unlatched and swung open to reveal a hunched, elderly gentleman with a beard that went to his knees. Although dressed in clean overalls and a nice looking flannel shirt, all under a lab coat, he was wearing an old straw hat, and barefoot to boot.

“Well heya, little missy! I haven’t seen or heard hide nor hair of you for a while!” he said, holding out a hand for her to shake. Instead she pulled him into a warm hug.

“Hey there, Mister McGucket!” she chimed. “I wish I could play catch up with you, but I need to grab a couple of things of Dipper’s.” The old man’s eyes swiveled about, looking back into the expansive house, that was now his home and workshop all in one. After a second or two of what seemed to be internal deliberation, he stepped aside and waved Mabel through the door.

“Alrighty, I s’pose I can show ya where he put his stuff when he came over. Why ain’t he comin’ to get any of it, though?” Mabel stopped dead in her tracks, halfway past him. She considered her next words very carefully, trying to avoid saying too much.

“I, uh…” Shoot, she should have thought about this! She could swindle with the best of them when she was at the Shack, but lying to an old friend felt wrong. She glanced down at the charm around her neck, weighing her options. Before she could say another word, though, McGucket cut back in.

“He go missin’, did he?” His voice carried concern, but he also took care to ask quietly. Mabel just nodded. “Somethin’ weird got’im didn’t it? And you’re hopin’ to catch the scent! Well follow me, miss Pines, and we’ll getcha something you can use fer that!”

“You aren’t… surprised?” she asked, astounded at the old codger’s eagerness to assist. He merely shrugged.

“I seen things men ain’t s’posed t’see! I gotta nose for this stuff, even if I ain’t there a hundred percent. I still keep a bandaid on m’beard for some reason!” he exclaimed, pointing to where there was, indeed, a bandage stuck to the wiry hair of his long, wizard-like beard. “With that in mind, y’gotta consider that it’s tough to keep weird stuff away from me, I just wish I could do somethin’ more to help ya out.” Walking as they talked, he led her to a door, which he promptly opened and motioned inside. “But here’s where yer brother was stayin’, Mabel. You getcha anything you think’ll help ya track ‘im down!”

She nodded, and went to step inside, but McGucket grabbed her wrist and tugged her down to his level.

“Also,” he added, in a hushed voice, “you be wary of that fuzzy Robin Goodfeller you got floatin’ around ya. He looks shiftier than a polecat runnin’ a perfume stand.” Mabel stared at the old man in disbelief, before he shot her a quick wink and plodded off elsewhere, bare feet slapping on the expansive tile floor.

Now alone, for the most part, Mabel set about rifling through her brother’s things. A foot or two away, Puck materialized in the air. He floated in a lazy circle, looking over things but not touching any of it.

“Your brother tends to be a bit unkempt in his living arrangements, it would seem,” he noted, staring firmly at a small pile of old laundry. Mabel nodded.

“Yeah, I’ve told him for years he needs to be more up to date on keepin’ his clothes cleaned up or he’ll never get a girlfriend.” She picked up one of his old shirts and sniffed at it. While certainly not clean, she found that the shirt’s odor didn’t offend her, like his scattered clothing used to. Instead it sent a shiver up her back, and a sensation of warm familiarity through her chest. What the what was that?! “So, uh, you think any of his clothes would help us find him?”

“Only if he holds a great sentimental attachment to them,” Puck said. She dropped the shirt with a shrug, and started browsing one of the shelves along the wall. “It’s less about his actual scent, and more about how much of himself he’s put into the object. Gifts typically have a larger connection, but other things that one has crafted themselves hold even greater signal to follow. Something like a handmade knife, or a piece of self made jewelry, or-”

“How ‘bout a journal?” Mabel inquired aloud. Pulling a particular tome of the shelf, she ran a hand over the leatherbound cover, dyed blue with a silver pine tree silhouette inlaid in an embossment. A sad smile curled the corner of her mouth up as she remembered making it for him when they were just fifteen; he was going to spend the entire Summer, that year, running around the area with their Grunkle Ford, cataloguing the weirdness of Gravity Falls to try and recapture what Ford had written in his own journals years beforehand. To help him out, she had learned bookbinding and handcrafted each of them their own journal.

Ford’s was a replica of his old books, a golden, six fingered hand against red. Dipper’s had been made more specific to him, with a large number “1” written boldly against the pine tree shape. She couldn’t recall if Dipper had ever given her a bigger hug than he had on that day. She clutched the book closer to her chest, willing herself not to start crying. With a deep breath, she steadied herself, fighting down the tears.

“That,” Puck said, pointing at the journal, “reeks of your brother. Let’s take it and go.” She nodded, slipping it into the bag she had gotten at Winkelmeyer’s store; she had learned quickly that although it seemed infinite in capacity, you had to dump everything out to find any one specific thing. She thought it best to keep the amount of stuff in it limited.

About facing, she walked with a bit of a hop in her step, happy to feel that much closer to finding her brother. As she walked along, she stopped to thank McGucket, waving to him as he struggled with the raccoon he referred to as his ‘raccoon wife’, struggling to keep her from climbing over a table littered with paperwork and beakers of various chemicals. He merely waved back, then paused and stared about two feet behind her. A glance over her shoulder revealed the space to appear empty, but apparently they both knew better.

Mabel swiftly shuffled out the door.

=========

There were two stops, primarily, that Mabel knew they had to make. First, she ducked into a small corner store, buying a couple cans of salt, along with some snacks for the journey ahead. Next on the list was a small hardware store, where she grabbed a box of iron tacks, a spool of wire, and finally a roll of duct tape.

Mabel decided one more stop was necessary, and in short order she and Puck found themselves in front of the _Wizard’s Closet_. Without hesitation, she strode in, ducked down a particular aisle, and stopped in front of the wall. Steeling her nerves with a deep breath, she rapped her knuckles against the wall. The well hidden panel slid open, and Dustin’s eyes peered through the slot. Landing on Mabel, they lit up, and he swung the door open.

“Welcome back, Miss Pines! How are your efforts in tracking-” he asked as she stepped through, but fell silent once she was in the hidden shop. Noticing after a moment, that he had fallen quiet, she turned to him.

“What’s the matter?” she requested. The old man lifted his hand, a bony, crooked finger pointing next to her, at the empty air. Glancing to her right, she sighed, shoulders falling. “You aren’t fooling him, Puck. You can come out.”

With a bit of showmanship, the Fae materialized in a swirling cloud of smoke, sitting on the empty air. He looked down at Winkelmeyer, who had yet to speak another word. After the two had a staring contest, he leaned over towards Mabel.

“You would think the poor man had never seen a Fae before,” he muttered. At those words, the elderly man snapped out of his trance and shook the pointing finger.

“Why have you brought one of _them_ into my store?” he demanded. Mabel raised her hands in self defense, palms out.

“Hey, hey! He’s on our side! Er, my side?” She shot a glance in Puck’s direction, and confirmed he was still lounging midair. “We made a deal, he’s helping me get Dipper back.” Winkelmeyer’s accusing finger fell an inch or two.

“Wait, did you say ‘Puck’?” His gaze shifted from Mabel to Puck, and back again. “As in the one that William Shakespeare invented?” At the old man’s question, Puck stood up, hooves touching the floor as he loomed over the shop keeper.

“He did NOT invent me,” the Fae growled. “He… merely named me.” Mabel turned to face him full on, head cocked.

“Say what? Puck, why you ackin’ cray-cray?” she asked. Puck waved her off.

“It’s true, though! Most of the time, my species of Fae are typically left nameless. William gave me a few different names, but the one that stuck sounded the most like what others have always called me,” he went on. “I’m a puca, or pookah or phooka-honestly, they gave us so many different names in Europe. We’re shapeshifters, but generally looked down on. In fact, most of the court nobles keep us as _pets_. I had the good fortune to be promoted to jester before I got caught here, in the Middle.”

She stared at him. The Fae she had put her faith in, to get her to the Never-Ever and back with her brother, was a clown?! She had been learning to use magic from some Fae noble’s fool?! Great, now all she likely knew were the equivalent of parlor tricks.

“And you never told me this why?!” she spat, finding herself angry. Puck merely shrugged.

“You never asked? You were all too eager to make a deal with me after I explained what some of my kind would be willing to use your brother for.”

“But you aren’t supposed to be able to lie!” she cried. Puck’s eyes crackled with green fury.

“I told you _**NO LIES**_.” She shrank back a step; a court jester or not, he was still kind of intimidating when his eyes did that, with his voice booming. “I plan to do as much as I can to help you get your brother back. I _need_ my freedom!” He paused, the fury in his eyes and voice dying down, ears drooping sadly. “I need to go back home.”

Any anger Mabel had felt, at a sense of betrayal, was washed away. Her quest buddy never meant any harm, he had simply just not given her the whole story. And knowing it now, did it change anything? No, he’d actually taught her how to use magic! He was going to get her across the Hedge, and back again, safely! That was the deal.

“I’m sorry,” she admitted. “Just, tensions are kinda high right now.” Then she turned to Winkelmeyer. “And sorry for us gettin’ all shouty in here. Is, uh, is the arrangement from earlier about that crystal lightning buying me whatever still good?”

The ancient man was still staring, almost accusingly, at Puck. He had resumed floating in place, legs crossed beneath himself as he picked that the fur on the end of his tail. Once Mabel had finished her question, he nodded, stare still fixed on the Fae.

“Yes, yes, whatever you think you might need.” Mabel beamed, maneuvering to the shelves that were lined with jars and bottles. She grabbed a varied selection, browsing quickly; she snagged a bottled ooze, that gurgled incessantly, an undulating ripple of purple and pink hues covering its surface. Another was jarred lightning, the bolt bouncing around inside with so much force that the glass hummed in her grasp. She also grabbed a jar full of what looked like normal biscuits, noticing the word ‘everlasting’ on the label. As she carted all of these to the counter, she glanced over at the tiny hurricane in a jar, which swirled and howled with fury in its glass prison. After a second or two of mental debating, she grabbed it as well, setting them all on the counter.

Winkelmeyer hobbled over and began writing everything down, occasionally scrutinizing her choices closely, as well as eyeballing the Fae that hovered in the center of his shop, unmoving. Once everything was written up, Mabel stuffed it all into the bottomless backpack and settled the straps over her shoulders. She turned towards the door, pausing with her hand on the crank that would unlatch it.

“Hey, Mister Winkelmeyer?” She turned back towards the old man, who was still sat at the counter, scribbling in his ledger. He glanced up at her, taking a split second to cast an untrusting glance at her companion. “Thank you for all of your help. Sorry, for any trouble I’ve caused.”

“Yes, well, trouble comes with the territory,” he grumbled. His eyes only left Puck when the Fae vanished, invisible once again. Then, he turned his focus to Mabel. “You do what you can to get your brother back, Miss Pines.” When his eyes met her own, she saw a gaze much older than the one hundred and twenty some years he had claimed to have under his belt. It was full of exhaustion, regret, and sympathy. “And please, get yourself back safe, as well.”

Mabel merely nodded, turned the crank, and stepped out of the store.

=========

Last minute preparations were made at the Mystery Shack; Mabel gathered everything she felt she would need on her journey, and divided it between the bottomless backpack and a fanny pack, for convenience sake. She made sure to gather up her crossbow and the dozen bolts she had for it, her trusty new grappling hook, her staff and a pocket knife to whittle on it, as well as a couples changes of clothing. After explaining to Soos she would be gone for awhile to find Dipper, he gave his best salute.

“Go find your bro, Mabel. Me and the Shack’ll still be here when you bring him back,” he reassured her. His voice carried more emphasis on the ‘when you bring him back’ part than anything else, and she felt a confidence boost from his words. Soos always believed in her, and, however goofy or wildly unbelievable his reasoning tended to be, at times, more often than not he was right.

“Thank you, Soos, for always believing in me,” she murmured into his shoulder, hugging tight around his ribs. “Even when it seems impossible.”

“Mabel, dood, you’ve done some pretty impossible things,” he noted, his gormless smile ever present on his face. “You beat up a buncha gnomes, you saved a merman, had a fistfight with some unicorns…” he trailed off, counting the events off on his fingers. She smirked, feeling more capable by the second. “Sometimes I think your full name is ‘Mabel I-can-do-the-impossible Pines.”

“Well now I don’t wanna say it _isn’t_ ,” she teased, giving him one last hug before she hopped into her car and started off towards the park. When they were outside of the city limits, Mabel cleared her throat, which caused Puck to materialize in the seat next to her. “So hey, you said back in the magic store you were a shapeshifter,” she noted. “Why haven’t you changed shape at all since I met you?”

“That loathsome thing around your neck,” he stated, voice flat. “Being bound to such a toxic substance has slowly sapped my powers from me. I can do some simple magic, and turn invisible, but to attempt to shapeshift would bleed me dry.” He shifted his gaze out of the corner of his eye, shoulders slumped. “If you run out of magic, you just need to recharge, or you can dip into your own life source. For a Fae to run out of magic is essentially a death sentence.”

“O-oh,” she replied, concentrating very, very hard on the road ahead of herself. The anger she had felt at first, back in the Wizard’s Closet, was very quickly converting into full swung guilt. Puck had been teaching her magic by doing it himself. He had been, essentially, slowly committing suicide in the hope that she would get through the Hedge and commit to her end of their deal. “I’m sorry, again, for how I reacted when you told me about you being a jester and junk.”

“It’s no matter,” he said with a shrug. “You’re getting me home. You’re getting your brother home.” He turned to face her, full on. “That’s what matters, right now.”

She could only nod in response, pulling her car off a few hundred feet shy of the park’s entrance. Grabbing an assortment of branches and leaves, she effectively buried the vehicle, shielding it from sight. Leaving it parked in the park’s lot might get her towed, and while that was low on her list of worries, she’d rather not risk it.

After a quick march along the trail, Mabel and Puck arrived in the little clearing she and her brother had come to so many times before. The marks from Dipper’s panicked clawing were still dug into the dirt. Her nose wrinkled, stomach doing a flip. Ugh, even though she was about to dive through to the other side and grab him, seeing the site of their last, disastrous meeting made her feel awful. She turned, to speak to Puck, and saw him staring at the markings, and where the missing shrub would have been.

“Your brother put up a ridiculously good fight,” he said, ears swiveling this way and that, the tip of his tail ticking to and fro like a metronome. “Also, whoever took him was very, _very_ determined to get him. This spot reeks of a magical struggle.”

“Does that mean it’ll be easy to hop from this side to that side?” she asked. She was eager to get off of the subject of her brother’s actual disappearance. Puck inclined his head, using a long finger to scribble a symbol in the dirt. It looked, to Mabel, like what Dipper would have called a Venn diagram. “Now then, you’ll need to make a symbol like this,” he went on, before he added a loopy scribble in one circle, and then a blocky one in the next, “and add these. The symbolism here is your world, and my world, meeting in the middle, here.” He gestured first to the circle with the block shape, and then the one with the swirl.

Mabel set about drawing the shape, making special care to match Puck’s version as closely as possible, and once she added the final detail, the felt that telltale shudder, along with a sudden, fresh emptiness in her midsection. Bending at the waist, her face twisted with discomfort.

“Is it supposed to feel that bad?” she groaned, turning to Puck. He dipped his head.

“Opening a way through the Hedge is very taxing, the first time or two. I apologize for not warning you.” He hovered to stand right beside her, a hand on her shoulder. “However, as much as you may feel drained, I assure you, you have plenty of energy left.”

She grinned, weakly, but nodded at his encouraging words. Straightening her stance, she concentrated, holding her hand out and focusing. Her fingertips itched, tingling with power as she readied herself for the next moment. Thumb and middle finger pressed together, at the tip, she gave her fingers a snap.

A dark, purple hue appeared in the lines of her sigil, tracing slowly. When the entire shape was glowing, the center filled in with the swirling amethyst light, gap widening as a portal yawned open. Mabel’s eyes widened as she felt the vacuum created by this tug on her feet and legs, like water rushing over a storm drain. She glanced at Puck, who was grinning so wide she feared his head might split apart at the jaw.

“Well then, Mister Goodfellow,” she prompted, adopting a snooty, and what she thought to be Shakespearean, tone. When he faced her, she held out a hand. “Shall we?” Long fingers gripped against her palm.

“Yes, I do believe we shall!” he responded, playfully copying her fake accent. With a nod between them, they both stepped forward, into the center of that glowing chasm.

Had Puck not had a tight grip on her hand, Mabel might have been thrashed as soon as she stepped through. The sheer amount of suction tugged her down immediately, then whipped her in a small spiral before she leveled out. The pressure seemed to come from every side at once, pressing against her, but mostly shoving her downwards  It was like free falling and drowning all at once, and it was terrifying. If she could open her mouth to scream, she very well might have.

Looking to her left, she noticed that Puck was, by contrast, having no trouble at all. If anything he appeared to be gliding, eyes closed serenely as they plummeted through the column of turbulent energy. The only sign that things were even slightly rough, as they fell, were his ears fluttering behind his head.

Just as quickly as the world had fallen out from under her, it came back again. They seemed to erupt from a rip in reality, flying out parallel to the ground beneath them, only for her to suddenly careen downwards and tumble for a few meters.

“Ow, oof, ack, OUCH!” she exclaimed, finally coming to a rest at the foot of a tiny hill. She sat up and picked twigs from her hair, rubbing at a spot where she was certain her ribs had gotten into a fistfight with a rock. While she collected herself, Puck jumped up and down, clapping excitedly as he inhaled deeply through his nostrils.

“Welcome, Mabel,” he said, arms spreading wide, motioning at the scenery, “to the Never-Ever!”

Her breath hitched in her throat, eyes wide as she took it all in. Rolling green hills coated in soft moss and grass, fields of wildflowers in every color imaginable, as well as some she was certain human eyes were never meant to see. Trees with sweeping, wide branches dotted the landscape, as well as tall, carved stone obelisks that loomed for miles around. She also noticed that, the longer she stared into the distance, the more she could see stretching before her.

“Where the heck is the horizon?” she wondered aloud.

“There isn’t one,” Puck replied. “The Never-Ever is a plane that stretches on endlessly. Unlike your realm, where you dwell on a dirt orb, we have a flat plane that goes on forever. The edges are still mostly uncharted, namely because they keep moving.” He turned to her, smiling. “If you climb up high enough you can see for miles upon miles into the distance.”

“Wow,” she mouthed breathlessly. That did seem pretty spectacular. However, a brief moment of clarity overtook her, and she snatched at the backpack, reaching down inside to grab at Dipper’s journal. “Okay, how do we do this tracking spell thing?”

After Puck drawing out the symbols for her, Mabel copied them onto the ground; a pair of circles, separated, but with the space between them bridged by a pair of lines that flared out at the ends like the bell of a trumpet. In one circle, she set the journal. After a moment of concentration, she finalized the spell, and the sigil lit up with a bright blue light, all of which then coalesced into the journal itself, the tome glowing. Mabel picked it up and turned in place. As she spun, the book would either glow brighter or dimmer, and she made a thoughtful, but somewhat unimpressed face.

“So I did all that to make a compass that treats Dip like he’s north?” She shook her head. “Somehow I was expecting something showier, flashier! Like a trail of sparkles, or a butterfly made of light that would ask us to follow it!”

“The spell I just taught you is quick, easy, low on energy cost, and most importantly _stealthy_ ,” Puck retorted. She quirked a brow at him, confused. “Mortals do not typically come across the Hedge of their own volition. This is a very dangerous place for you. If anybody finds you here-”

A sudden fanfare cut his answer off. His eyes widened, ears perking, and then drooping down in a saddened fashion. There was a sound of hooves on the ground, and Mabel spun around to see a procession of tall figures in gleaming armor approaching, astride stags or horses. Along with a few of them that _were_ the horses. _Centaurs!_ Mabel was seeing honest to goodness centaurs! Her moment of excitement was quickly smothered as Puck gripped her wrist.

“Mabel,” he sighed, head hanging low as the group approached. The closer they got, the more of them she could count. There were easily thirty, maybe forty of them. And the vast majority carried spears or swords. She quickly jabbed her hand down into the backpack, rifling about and tugging at the handle of the grappling hook, to no avail. Before she could wrestle it free, they were surrounded. Puck lowered his head respectfully as the Fae and centaurs circled them loosely. “Meet the knights of the Summer Court.”

-End Chapter 6-


	7. Chapter Seven

“Talk about a welcome wagon,” Mabel muttered under her breath as she took in the faces around herself and Puck. Skin of every color she could think of-yes, even lavender!-was present, the contingency made up of an even mix of both male and female Fae in matching armor. Every suit was made of green, metallic bands that criss crossed over their abdomens, with bracers and greaves of the same material. Among them all she saw no helmets, save for a select few astride their golden stags, and they seemed more ornamental than functional, with sweeping curves that made them look like leaves woven into a helmet form.

“You must come with us.” The voice was a rumbling bass, that Mabel felt more than heard. She felt her knees tremble a tiny bit, hand still trying to wrestle her grappling hook free from her bag. Puck laid his hand over her arm, and when she glanced up, he shook his head at her. She pouted, but let go of the handle she had been clinging to, to stare up at the source of the voice.

She had always imagined centaurs to be powerful and muscular, sure. But she had also imagined them as graceful, beautiful creatures. The one speaking to them, grasping the the haft of the spear it carried in hands that could probably crush her head without effort, was, decidedly, not graceful.

The human half was a rectangular slab of muscle groupings, with arms like bridge cables. His jaw was so square it almost had corners, and his nose was a broad, flat structure that made his face look wider than it really was. His chin was beset by the dark brown stubble of a five o’clock shadow, and his hair (or did you call it a mane with a centaur? Maybe she’d ask) was a mop of thick, yet even and well kept dreadlocks. His skin was a deep tan, almost like an earthy, orange clay.

The horse half itself was taller than she was, and the fur was a shiny, dark gray color. His hooves were as wide as dinner plates, with long copper colored fetlocks that covered most of the onyx sheen of the hooves themselves. His tail was bobbed, the length of hair there folded over itself and bound in place with a leather strap.

Apparently, they had been quiet and unmoving for too long. He stamped a hoof, impatiently, and motioned at Mabel with his spear’s copper tip. “I said, you-”

“-must go with you, yeah yeah,” Mabel interrupted, waving the spear tip out of her face. The grimace of displeasure on the centaur’s face managed to give her second thoughts about having done so. She smiled sheepishly. “Um, why exactly?”

“You’re intruding on Summer Court territory,” Puck hissed, ears flat against his skull in a sign of submission. Mabel stuck her hands on her hips.

“ _I’m_ intruding?” she demanded, jabbing a finger into Puck’s chest. “Don’t you mean _we’re_ intruding?”

“Master Puck,” the centaur rumbled, “is one of the Court. You, enslaver, are not.” Mabel felt the color drain from her face at the word ‘enslaver’. “You are to be brought before the Queen of Summer and face her judgement.”

“I, bwuh? Enslaver?! Puck, I didn’t enslave you! Tell them, we made a deal!” Mabel pressed her palms together. “Please!” Puck frowned at her, and could do little more than shrug.

“I will plead your case to the Queen,” he offered, hands spread apologetically. “I can do little more for you than that.”

“B-but, you promised me! We made a deal! We shook on it!” she argued while the centaur produced a set of stone manacles. He dangled them in front of her, his brow creased with impatience. She looked to Puck, who only nodded, frown deepening. With a sigh of defeat, she held out her hands. With a startling gentleness, she found her wrists encased in the heavy, carved stones, arms too heavy to lift. The centaur then lifted her off of the ground, and set her in the saddle of stag with no rider. One of the nearby Fae that looked like a Lord of the Rings elf extra blew on a long, brass horn, the entire platoon turning in place and marching off in the direction they came from.

As they traveled, in relative silence, Puck floated alongside Mabel, who was making for certain to look everywhere but at him. She would concentrate very hard on that cluster of stones, or that short, gnarled tree that still managed to be gorgeous despite its twisted shape. After a fair distance, Puck quietly cleared his throat.

“What do you want,” she grumbled, recounting the points of the antlers of the stag she had been seated on. There were still twenty six, same as what she figured was, by now, half an hour ago. When she bothered to glance in his direction, his head was held low, ears drooped.

“I’m sorry there’s nothing more I can do for you, until we get an audience with the Queen,” he lamented. “I know you didn’t enslave me, you merely came into possession of the ball and chain my enslaver wore.” He took the chance to look into her eyes, wincing when he saw the angry glare. “Time for those of us from the Never-Ever is very different. By our standards, I’ve been gone for a year or so. Things don’t zip around as fast as they do in the Middle. The others wouldn’t listen if I insisted she died ages ago.”

“Why not?!” she demanded, doing her best to yell under her breath. She noticed the giant centaur occasionally turning his head, and snarling when he saw them speaking to one another. “I don’t look like some ugly witch!”

“I know that!” he snapped. “These others aren’t as used to humans as I am. They would insist most of you look exactly the same.”

“That’s pretty racist,” she scoffed, counting the number of steps her mount took between that stump behind her, and the one up ahead. Puck groaned, burying his face in his hands.

“I never claimed the Fae were an understanding lot, or very tolerant.” His ears wavered. “I told you, I used to be a pet. A sentient, talking being, owned by a higher caste of Fae. Just because my kind are looked down on.” He nodded towards the centaur. “Most of his kind are inscripted into the Summer Court’s army upon their birth. They grow up knowing nothing but combat and discipline.” He then motioned to a female Fae, sitting high upon a stag at the front. It was the lavender skinned one Mabel had marveled at momentarily, hours before. “She’s likely a noble of the lower houses. She could simply decide to gut the centaur, if she chose, and he would have to stand there and accept it.”

Mabel felt her stomach twist at that mental imagery. That ladylike, graceful Fae could do something that cruel?! And to somebody bigger than her, just because he was, technically, beneath her? She grimaced, shaking her head to try and get rid of the pictures behind her eyelids.

“That… that’s horrible,” she muttered. Puck nodded sadly.

“The only reason I’m shown any amount of respect is because I directly serve the Summer Queen herself,” he noted. “Despite my kind being generally viewed as animals, the status of my position is the only thing keeping the horse-assed brute from crushing my head under one of his hooves.”

“The brute’s name,” the centaur annunciated, “is Tiberius.” He leveled an angry, hateful stare at Puck. “And you would do well to remember it, Fool.”

“Or what?” Puck challenged, arms crossed in defiance. “You’ll smear the Queen’s favorite clown into the soil? We both know that if you so much as touch me you’re glue.” Tiberius snarled, and Mabel noticed that his eye teeth were practically fangs, or maybe even tusks. “Well, Tibbers? Do I sound like I give two gnome shits what you think of me?”

The centaur spat on the ground, directly in front of where Puck was floating. He drew up his legs in a hurry, the glob of spittle missing by a hair’s width. After it went splat on the ground, Puck’s eyes crackled with green energy as he floated directly up into Tiberius’ face.

“If that had hit me,” he said, voice level and monotone, “the Queen would feed you to the hounds. Piece by piece, chunk by chunk, until you were not but a torso and head. And with as large as you are, _Tibbers_ , it would take her a millennium, at least. And then she would have your remains mounted on a wall plaque, in the hallway, for decoration.” The centaur’s angry gaze momentarily broke, eyes blinking, the bulge of his Adam’s Apple shifting in his throat as he swallowed nervously. Puck reached up, gently tapping him on the forehead. When his finger withdrew, there was a tiny, sparkle-shelled turtle stuck there. “I like you, have a sticker!”

Mabel couldn’t believe the spectacle; Puck had gotten the giant, angry horseman to back off with that threat? Maybe she had misjudged her Fae companion after all. And now he was tormenting him with the glitter stickers! When, moments before, he seemed so worried, so meek.

“Uh, where was all that fury and pulling of rank earlier, Puck?” she asked when he floated back beside her.

“I wasn’t sure if you were being taken in, or potentially executed on the spot. I was waiting to see before I did anything,” he whispered. “Once it was established that the Queen wanted to see you, I knew you weren’t going to come to harm. Not just yet.” She nodded in understanding.

“Also because screwing with the rabble all depends on timing,” he continued. “There’s a reason I was given my job, even if some oversized donkeys don’t appreciate my talents.” Tiberius huffed, the muscles in his neck tensing as he forced himself to remain calm. Mabel could hear his teeth grinding.

“Maybe, uh, maybe you do your job a little less effectively until we get to the Queen, please?” she requested. Puck dipped in a bow, ears waggling.

“As you wish, child.” He sealed the statement with a sly wink, which Mabel was uncertain about trusting. He’d gotten under her skin, a time or two, with his antagonistic habits back in Gravity Falls. To see just how eagerly he slipped into it in the Never-Ever worried her for both his safety and her own, the Queen’s personal jester or not. She was so lost in thought about this, she nearly failed to notice the wall stretching out before them, until the last possible moment.

It stretched from one end of her vision to the other, looming higher than most of the big office buildings she would see in business districts of large cities. The entire wall was overgrown with thick vines that sprouted all manner of flowers. The thorns that stabbed outwards, from beneath the broad leaves and giant blooms, were each the size of a tall traffic cone, and faded from a bright green to an angry, deep red at the tip.

Getting closer, she noticed that the wall wasn’t even a wall, but rather trees. Enormous trees so tall you could barely see the tops, trunks so thick a four lane highway could be paved through one, with room to spare. Each branch could easily support a house, or they would have been able to, had they not been woven together like the strands of a basket, forming an impenetrable blockade between each tree. It was like this as far as Mabel could see in either direction. And yet the warband was heading straight for it.

“So, uh, hey, Puck? Where we goin’? Because it looks like we’re gonna run right into that wall of trees.” He simply grinned, eyebrows lifting with amusement. “Like, the people up front are still just, uh, riding their mounts right up to those vicious looking spikes, shouldn’t we be turning or somethin’?” The knights at the very edge of the platoon were picking up speed. At any second they would all be impaled, she just knew it.

At the last possible moment, the vines peeled away, and the branches curled inwards, creaking gently as the contingency rode through. Mabel’s chiding herself over forgetting that Fae had magic tricks up their proverbial sleeves was soon forgotten to the vision before her.

They had come through the arboreal barricade into an enormous courtyard, with intricately trimmed topiaries, fountains that looked more like organic shapes turned to stone than carved from it, and several enormous, curving tables with dozens upon dozens of seats on either side. In the air, in great swarms, were what appeared to be fireflies of various hues casting light as they pulsed and twinkled. Noticing those, she turned and looked back through the trees as the branches began to weave closed again; it was still broad daylight on that side of the trees, but almost dusk on this side.

Reminding herself to once again not question reality here, she turned her focus back to the party that appeared to be happening in the courtyard. Magical creatures and Fae of all shapes, sizes, and colors were talking to one another while eating. At the sight of the food, Mabel felt her stomach growl insatiably, and then again when the smell wafted over. She could smell cinnamon and vanilla of fresh baked goods, sharp and sweet fruity aromas coming next, followed then by the alluring odor of meats cooked over a roaring fire.

“We must dismount here,” Tiberius announced as they came to a sudden halt, a few yards from the edges of the party. “You will be taken before the Queen immediately.” Without another word, he plucked Mabel off of the stag’s saddle and gave her a rather rough drop to the ground. She groaned with discomfort, but managed to lift herself off the ground, hands still dangling heavily at her sides. She wasn’t sure what kind of stone the manacles were made from, but they were heavy enough to drag even her down a smidgen.

Once she had collected herself, the centaur nudged her shoulders with a knuckle, guiding her forward, between the tables as they approached the far end of the courtyard. Mabel stumbled once or twice, slowing to stare at food as they passed. Puck eventually cleared his throat to get her attention, and then shook his head once their eyes met.

“Do not eat _anything_.” His words carried a warning tone. When she gave him a confused sneer,  he rolled his eyes before elaborating. “Taking food from the Fae without it being explicitly offered freely can create a legally binding, life altering contract. You could sample a tart and end up having to be a footrest for the rest of your years.”

“Man what is up with you weirdos and all of these contractual obligations and whatnot?” she grumped.

“Simply put, we do not value physical currency,” he happily explained. “We buy goods and services by bartering our own services. A Fae is only as good as their word. At the same time, one Fae can sell the debt they are owed by another to someone else, putting the original individual in debt to another party entirely. In those cases, the rules of the deal could be radically altered.” He smirked, lips peeling away from his perfectly white teeth. Mabel shuddered, both at his grin and the notion of having to completely change a favor owed because of who now owned said favor.

To try and distract herself, she watched the edges of the party, noticing peacocks strutting about. Her jaw nearly dropped when she noticed that just beyond the peacocks, a stegosaurus was happily meandering about, pausing to munch at various shrubs, spiked tail wagging. The plates on its back were plated with gold, and studded with jewels the size of her fist, and chains were draped from plate to plate.

“Wait wait wait, are dinosaurs from here?!” she demanded. Puck’s ears perked, and twisting his head to follow her gaze, he laughed once.

“Oh goodness, no! The Summer Queen found some of them endearing and has snatched several different kinds over the millennia, bringing them into the Never-Ever. More aggressive predators were typically turned lose, too much trouble trying to keep them fed and content.” Puck turned to look her in the eye again. “So keep that in mind when we get back on the hunt for your twin.”

Mabel nodded, then staggered as the centaur’s fingers wrapped over her shoulders, holding her in place. She shrugged his hand away, giving him an indignant glare, which he had no interest in matching as he looked straight ahead.

“My Queen, we found this enslaver with your court jester in tow when we went to investigate the tear along our borders.” Mabel stared at Tiberius for a moment, and then whipped her head to look forward.

First she noticed the throne, made from saplings that had been braided together and bent this way or that, forming a filigree of trees which were adorned with a silk cushion. Then she noticed the gown of the individual sat there, a beautiful woven set of chain mail, glinting in the soft light as gold and silver alternated from section to section. Long legs led to a waspish waist, which followed a slender, curved form up to one of the most hauntingly beautiful faces Mabel had ever seen in her life.

Her chin and nose each were long, with a delicate curve. Her eyes were set wide, and were large, reminding Mabel of a deer, more than a person, each a deep, rich shade of honey. Her lips were green, and her skin a deep olive color. Her hair was the color of wheat ready for harvest, and it hung in a braid so long it trailed out from behind her, over her shoulder, and down to her ankles. All throughout this, various flowers were blooming. Like, seriously, Mabel just saw that rose open!

“Thank you, Tiberius, you are dismissed.” Her voice was like a song, Mabel’s heart melting at the words. Though breathless, the Queen’s tone carried an air of utmost authority. When the centaur grumbled and scraped a hoof against the sod under his feet, the Queen’s gaze went from dismissive to a furious stare. Mabel felt Tiberius step away, and looking up noticed his head was cowed.

“As you wish, my Queen.” He shot Mabel one last furious glance, then turned and trotted off.

“And get that silly picture off of your forehead,” she added. Tiberius reached up, scratching at the sticker left by Puck.

“Yes yes, go get your coat brushed and your hooves trimmed you overgrown donkeyman,” Puck teased. The Queen and Mabel both swiveled to stare at him. Mabel was certain Puck was about to get himself killed.

“Puck,” she said once, and immediately he was on his knees, at the feet of her throne. She extended a hand, and Mabel noticed her nails were all perfectly trimmed into an oval shape, but appeared honed to a razor’s edge. He tenderly kissed at her knuckles, and she giggled. The mirthful sound was almost infectious. “Where have you been the last few centuries, getting yourself into trouble?”

“No more than usual, my dearest Queen Titania,” he stated, standing back up. “Until a witch trapped me with that disgusting thing,” he further detailed, pointing to the charm around Mabel’s neck. When Titania’s eyes fell on it, and then up to Mabel’s own, they held a steely sort of hatred. Mabel gulped.

“And what reason do you have for imprisoning my favorite fool on your own plane, mortal?” Mabel shook her head, opening her mouth to speak in her defense, but Puck was swifter.

“Do not blame the child, mistress! Were it not for Mabel I would have never found my way back home. She merely found the charm to which I am bound, and made a deal to release me to my freedom, should I help her find her sibling.” Titania perked an eyebrow at Mabel.

“How does one of the Middle end up in the Never-Ever when seeking lost relatives?” she asked. The way she was staring, Mabel knew the question was being directed at her.

“I, uh…” With a deep breath, she steadied her voice. “My twin brother was pulled from my world to yours, your Majesty, and in my search for answers I came to learn that there was likely a Fae involved in his being taken.” She then nodded to Puck. “I came across the charm he’s bound to while shopping for things to help me find a way to get my brother back. Neither I, or the person I got it from, knew that he was bound to it when I received it.”

“Taken by Fae?” Titania canted her head to one side. “I’m afraid I’ve heard nothing of it. To do such a thing now would be a crime that would start a war.”

“War?” The Fae Queen nodded.

“Humans are only taken as a means of creating halfbreeds for combat, or particular individuals for other uses. More as tools, than soldiers or workers. We especially do not take adults, unless they would be of great importance to our respective side’s efforts. We prefer to raise taken humans from infancy, for ease of adjusting them to this different realm.” Her head shifted to the other side, gaze still boring curiously into Mabel. “Why would your brother have been taken?”

“He…” Mabel started, then glanced at Puck. He merely nodded. “He’s been possessed by Bill Cipher, once before.” At that name, the Queen’s nails dug into the bark of her throne, carving ribbons away as she drug her fingers along it in anger. “He was fooled into it, though! And eventually we fought Bill directly, and we won. But Puck says that his being possessed is beneficial, somehow, whether or not he’s still got an unwelcome guest in his head.”

Titania released the death grip she had on her throne, the rivulets cut into it by her nails healing over swiftly. With a frown, she turned attention to Puck.

“Have you any notion as to who would have reason to do such a thing?” she asked him. He swiftly shook his head and shrugged.

“My Queen, I may remind you that I’ve been absent for half of a millennium or so! I would hope my absence was not so unnoticeable,” he quipped. She hummed acknowledgement, then turned back to Mabel.

“Why are you still wearing those horrible bracelets my soldiers put on you?” she inquired, motioning Mabel to come closer. With an awkward gait, Mabel stepped closer, struggling to lift her arms. Or, well, she thought she would struggle; when she went to yank her arms up, she nearly punched herself in the face.

“Who the what?! These things weighed a ton ten seconds ago!” she cried, befuddled. Puck snickered, and Titania merely smiled.

“Fae trickery, I’m afraid. They only weigh as much as your guilt,” she explained, tapping each one delicately. Where the Queen’s finger landed, the stones cracked and fell away to dust, releasing her wrists. “When you were afraid of what might happen, you questioned your own motives and actions. Once your conscience had been cleared, it no longer weighed on your heart.”

Mabel rubbed at her wrists, more impressed than anything at the notion behind the manacles’ operation. If only she had had those back during her scuffle with the unicorns, when she was twelve! Those horse-faced butts wouldn’t have been able deny her innocence then!

“Now then, Mabel, was it?” She nodded. “You may go and enjoy the party freely. Eat what you may with no attachment or contracts looming over you like a sword of Damocles.” Mabel bowed her head in thanks, her stomach taking the chance to ruin the peace of the moment with an angry growl.

“Thank you, oh Queen,” she managed to say before she spun around and started off through the party. She could hear Puck entertaining the Queen, and successfully if the bubbly, melodic laughter was to be believed. That sound was quickly lost in the din of the voices of the other attendees, Mabel grabbing a plate and loading it up with all manner of food. Breads, cakes, fruit, and half of a gamebird. She also swiped up a goblet and filled it with a swirling, glittery looking drink that reminded her a lot of Mabel Juice. More so when she sipped at it. “Huh, maybe I have a lil bit of Fae influence inspiring me back home.”

She wandered as she ate, nodding in greeting at any Fae or creature that paid her any mind. She was passing by one group in particular when a small, pointed red cap and brown beard caught her eye. She spun in place, doing her best not to do a spit take.

“Jeff?!” The gnome twisted at hearing his name, and beamed a smile at her.

“Well if it isn’t Mabel Pines!” He turned back to a tiny, green skinned lady he had been talking to, that was roughly an inch or two taller than him, and clad in what appeared to be birch bark strips sewn into a dress. “This is the girl I was just telling you about, she’s been a huge help!”

“Uh, Jeff?” Mabel leaned in closer to whisper. “I thought you weren’t s’posed to be here anymore or something?”

“Oh I got back in on good behavior! Your advice paid off huge, too!” He tilted his head, motioning to the short green woman. “I’m hitting it off big time with this bonsai dryad! All of your dating lessons have made a major difference! You ever need more stuff to trade with that purple suited old coot, look me up!”

Mabel half grinned, then looked up at the dryad, who gave a friendly wave. “He might be a little rough around the edges, and kind’ve a dummy, but Jeff’s a good guy! I’ll leave ya to it,” she said, winking at the gnome before turning to continue exploring. She watched a few more of the assorted dinosaurs wandering about the garden, each as extravagantly decorated as the first stegosaurus she had seen earlier. She complimented a few of the other guests on their outfits, exclaiming that she would have to learn how to make clothes the way the Fae did so she could apply it to her sweater knitting. If anything, the party was surprisingly relaxed and laid back.

Then she heard it. That voice, so smooth and luscious. A voice that at one point in time had made her weak in the knees, made her eyelashes flutter when it muttered sweet nothings into her ear. A voice so buttery and sweet, it would taste like caramel.

“Yes, yes, I know I said I had business in the Middle but that went about as well as Winter and Summer maintaining peace past a millennium.” Mabel immediately whirled about, eyes locking onto the back of a head coated in straw colored hair. A set of broad shoulders clothed in a finely pressed, designer shirt. “No, honestly, the girl I was courting ended up being a little nuts, so I had to end things with her. I mean, her brother gets snatched by the Fae, and she thinks she’s going to find a way to get him back?!” There was a familiar scoff, that made her skin crawl. “I don’t care if I am a changeling, I don’t need to put up with the nutters.” The small assembly of other Fae chuckled at his story.

_He knew?! That worthless son-of-a-butt **KNEW** about Dipper and tried to keep me away from him?! That’s it…_ She marched right up, grinning widely at the people seated, facing her direction. Their expressions became confused as she tapped the speaker on the shoulder.

“Oh hey, haha, that’s pretty funny, right? Hey, remember when I said if I ever saw you again, or heard you messing with my family, I promised to do this?” With a hand gripped firmly on his shoulder, she spun the seated figure about and threw a left hook straight across his face, resulting in a nauseating crunch. Chad spilled from his chair and hit the floor with a pained shriek, one hand shooting to his nose. “Now how’s about we start from the part where you fuckin’ knew about my brother getting nabbed?!”

“Mahbehl?!” he whined, the hand over his now broken nose smothering his voice to a nasal whimper. “You bwoke my nothe! Yo-How did you ged hewe?!”

“Thaaat’s not really important right now, you lying sack of pig poop,” she said, giving each fist a small squeeze in the opposite hand in turn, cracking her knuckles. “What is important is that you apparently know a helluva lot more about my brother goin’ missing than you originally claimed, so you and I are gonna tango until you spill the beans, you lying turd.”

Chad’s free hand shot up to shield his face, his body curling into a fetal position as he sobbed. She stood over him, fists clenched tightly as she tried to decide where the first shot should go. Ribs? Nah, he might get winded and be unable to talk. Of course, if she broke his jaw he really couldn’t talk.

“I had nothig to do wib id!” he wailed between sobs, “I jutht heard aboud id! Half of the Nevew-Evew heawd dat a humen wath daken!”

Before she could open her mouth to demand a better answer, or throw a punch to coax more information from her now most certainly ex-boyfriend, who also happened to be a changeling, an uproar of laughter came from up near the throne. Mabel’s head whipped around to spy Puck, also curled into a tight ball, sides shaking as he hooted.

“Oh my goodness gracious, what changeling gets bested by a human who isn’t even using magic or iron?! That pretty boy went down like an egg filled with gelatin!” Puck guffawed, pointing directly at Chad. “What a lousy excuse for a superior being! I mean I knew changelings weren’t high-breeds but I’m pretty sure a gnome could have handled that jab better!” A snort came from somewhere else in the crowd. “My Queen, tell me, did we breed the strength out of the changelings, or is that one just a failure all around?”

Somebody else watching laughed, and before long the entire audience was laughing at Chad’s misfortune. Keeping a hand clamped over his broken nose, he shot a tear-filled glare of anger at Mabel and tromped off. The guests continued to chuckle for a brief while, and Mabel started to feel self conscious. Still, breaking Chad’s nose felt awesome. Maybe she should have done that to begin with, back at the Shack!

As the rush of adrenaline started to wear off, she started to feel tingly. In fact, her back seemed to be humming, and-wait, no, that was in the backpack. She yanked it from her shoulders and pitched the flap open, then dug around to see what was causing the vibrations, summarily pulling out Dipper’s Journal. When she turned back around, the glow grew stronger, the book positively thrumming in her grasp. She suppressed a squeal, running over to Puck.

“Puck, Puck! We gotta go, the book is-” she began, but then realized she had interrupted a conversation he was having with the Queen. “Oh, er, sorry, your Majesty, for my behavior. I didn’t mean to make a scene here,” she apologized, head cowed. Titania waved it off.

“No, no, it’s no trouble at all. There’s always bound to be some sort of commotion at my parties,” she replied. “Summer Fae are creatures of passion, and sometimes passion is violent. Besides, never have I seen such honesty in a threat, even from one among my followers.” She grinned, and Mabel felt her legs wobble.

“Alas, my lady, I fear the human child is right. If the tracking spell on her brother is giving off a signal, we have to follow it while we have the chance,” Puck noted, and Titania inclined her head gracefully.

“But of course, my Fool. Aid her in her quest, and return to me again once your obligation is fulfilled.” He bowed deeply, ears splayed backwards before kissing her hand again. He twisted around to face Mabel, grinning warmly.

“Well then, child, lead the way!”

=========

Pain. It was like an icepick was being driven through each temple, and then swirled around while searching for that sweet spot to cause the largest migraine possible, and it was working. Every time he felt the sharp tips jab this way or that, Dipper’s body would seize, back arching as he tried to fight against whatever force was holding him to the stone slab he was forced to.

“Why… do you… resist…. so furiously!?” a voice demanded. The sensations on his skull doubled their efforts, causing him to cry out. “Just yield, allow us to use the gateway!”

“Stay out of my head!” he spat. White flashed behind his eyelids, and it felt like he was being pulled in twain. He felt the fingertips on his scalp yank back reflexively, along with an angry hissing. When he opened his eyes, he saw… himself?! And somebody familiar. Somebody whose presence felt threatening. “What the…?!”

“Oh, wonderful,” the figure groused, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Your mind is so well guarded it shears off a piece of itself in order to avoid being breached. This will take longer than I and my accomplices thought.” Shaking their hands, they flexed their fingers. Dipper didn’t understand what that meant, until he looked down and noticed from the waist down, he was a phantom. He tested this by shoving his own hand through his gut, grasping at nothing. He was… projecting? He’d worry about that later, for now he tried to focus on his jailer.

All he could make out was long black hair, and green eyes. Very green eyes, that he felt like he had seen once before. Before this person had even confronted him in the park.

“What do you want with me and my brain?!” his spectre demanded. His captor rolled their eyes.

“As I have told you before, I want to unlock the gateway there,” it droned. “You are of immense importance in the war to come.” Yet again, their fingers dug into his scalp.

Before Dipper could voice any further protests, he felt that familiar lancing of pain take hold again, his projection’s vision fading along with its corporeal form. Once again, under the duress of the ensuing agony, his world went black.

-End Chapter 7-


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WRITER’S NOTE: The statements made within this chapter about a certain genderless race do not reflect the author’s views on people who identify as genderless/agendered. These statements are purely based on the fantasy race portrayed as such. I take no issue with anyone for their gender identity or preferred pronouns.

_‘August 3rd, 2017’_

_‘Today, Great Uncle Ford and I were discussing the largely nonexistent political structure of the magical and strange creatures of Gravity Falls with the Multibear. Grunkle Ford and the Mutibear became fast friends over a song from the late 1960s, the first time they met, and have had numerous meetings since then.’_

_‘As it turns out, most of the forest politics falls to the gnomes that don’t follow Jeff’s lead. I guess Candy, Grenda and Wendy had a run in with some of them when Mabel was trying to gather unicorn hair to guard the Shack during our first summer here. But they tend to serve as the law force, though they seem more concerned about policing things amongst their own kind than making sure other species follow their guidelines. The Manotaurs, unsurprisingly, ignore the gnomes, and the gnomes are all too happy to be ignored. According to MB, the last time the gnomes tried to enforce a rule the Manotaurs broke, Chutzpar and a few others used them to play lawn darts…’_

Mabel snickered to herself as she read over that line, turning the page. She was seated on top of a fairly large rock that had a myriad of smaller chunks of stone milling about underneath it in waves, pushing her along at a decent, but steady clip. Puck hovered alongside her, more interested in the stickers she had slapped against the rock.

“Mabel, where in the Never-Ever did you come up with the idea for combining the Stone and Travel sigils in this manner?” he asked, head tilted. She shrugged, turning another page in her brother’s journal.

“I dunno, I was kinda reminded of a nerdy video game Dipper used to play, where they combined different symbols to make different effects, like the squiggles for water and fire made steam. I figured it’d be easier to ride while we’re traveling than having me walk everywhere,” she explained. Puck simply made a noise of confirmation. “Hey, if there’s a sudden pitfall or something that I would trip over, I’d rather Rocky here be the one to stumble.

“You _named_ it?!” he said flabbergasted. “Balderdash!”

“No, I named it Rocky, and he’s not big enough to be a boulder, or dashing anywhere! This is a light gallop, at best.” She nodded emphatically, and Puck placed his face in his hands. Apparently he wasn’t prepared to handle somebody else throwing puns and jokes at him the way she did. “Besides, if I’m gonna be combat ready, I’d rather be rested. Hence, Rocky! Isn’t that right buddy?” She patted the side of the rock, which did nothing to respond. It was a rock, after all; animated purely for carrying her. It still wouldn’t stop her from assigning it a name, gender, and multitude of personality traits though.

“I suppose I can’t argue with that,” Puck murmured. She grinned triumphantly at him, and stuck her nose back in the book shortly after. “Are you learning anything useful from that?”

Mabel shook her head, trying to focus on the page. She could hear her brother’s voice reading the words as she followed them, and it helped her feel a little more at ease. It was comforting to hear his voice in anything other than a state of panic, even if it was just inside her head.

“No, it’s just something to pass the time while we follow the trail,” she admitted. “Although, I guess useful depends on how much you have a use for the rules of Lawn Gnome Darts.”

“For once, I’m not going to ask,” Puck grumbled. Mabel rolled her eyes, flipping the page again as she looked up. Up ahead she could still see the peak of a mountain, slightly faded in the distance. She then twisted and stared back behind, where she could still see the silhouette of the wall of trees that made up the Summer Court’s gardens. Then she wiggled in place while she turned a full three-sixty, watching the terrain as she did. “What are you doing now? Looking for a rest stop so you can use the little girl’s room?”

“No, mister mouth, I could have sworn those trees,” she said, pointing at a tiny patch of woodland, “were on our right side half an hour ago. We’re moving directly between the wall and that mountain, following the book’s signal, and I don’t remember them being on our left before. And I was pretty sure those rocks were closer to them.” She pointed at a cluster of carved stones, which were now several hundred yards away from the trees.

“That’s just how the Never-Ever is,” Puck said flatly. “Things move.”

“Things… move…?”

“This realm is not bound to the same laws of physics yours is. Here, the Summer and Winter courts radiate power that shifts the landscape and changes it constantly. Much like the push and pull of the moon affects your oceans in the Middle, the forces of the opposing courts twist and tug at the land. Major landmarks are powerful enough to resist, but most of the Wylds is constantly shifting.” He nodded at the trees. “Little things like those trees and stones moving are common this close to a court. The further out we get, the more dangerous the shifting landscape becomes.”

“Weird,” she mumbled, grateful for the tracking spell the book had on it. It was keeping them moving in the right direction. “Wait, what’re the ‘wilds’?”

“Wylds,” Puck corrected her, and she noticed there was an odd emphasis on the word’s pronunciation. “The places of the Never-Ever that no court holds power over are referred to as the Wylds. As powerful as Summer and Winter are, the Wylds are more expansive than either of their territories. It’s also where the shadier, and more loathsome denizens of the Never-Ever call home.”

“Like who?”

“Predators, both sentient and beast,” Puck noted, his eyes focused on a pile of bones out in the distance. Mabel noticed the large skeleton appeared to be one of a stegosaurus, and that there were claw marks in the plates, as well as several snapped ribs. She shuddered. “Also, both magical and non-magical alike. It’s best to stay on your guard.”

Mabel merely nodded, returning her attention to the book, but with much less focus. She was now acutely aware of any and every tiny sound around them. More often than not it was a rabbit, or small bird. Once it was a tizzy of fairies; not Fae, but the tiny little butterfly winged people. Mabel hadn’t seen one of them since the time that Soos “accidentally” smashed one. As much as she wanted to follow them, marveling at their sparkly wings, she had more pressing matters at hand. She turned her full focus back to the journal, in the meantime, flipping to a random spot.

_‘June 2nd, 2017’_

_‘Today Mabel and I started the last summer that we’ll spend in Gravity Falls before we graduate high school. I’m personally terrified of what the future holds for us, but I know that as long as I have my sister in my life, I’ll be able to face anything. I mean heck, we stood up to a world-destroying dream demon right? Adult life shouldn’t be so hard. It’s just…’_

There were several heavily scribbled out lines here, making the text beneath impossible to read. Mabel frowned and skipped to the next legible line.

_‘We’ve always had each other right there when we needed them. I think I’m afraid that I’ll need Mabel and she’ll end up being halfway across the country, and then what would I do? Gotta think of a good way to get around this. Maybe find out where she’s applying for college, scope the area for something I can also apply to?’_

Mabel first thought this was vaguely stalkerish behavior, and grimaced, but in the same instant realized she might have done the same thing. Dipper was right, they had always had one another. In fact, even being across town from each other sometimes made her antsy. She missed her brother when he was only two blocks away, what if they had been in different states? She’d probably go bonkers. She turned a few pages ahead.

_‘May 7th, 2018’_

_‘I apologize for not writing for the last few months. Preparing for graduation has been insane! Luckily, Mabel and I ended up enrolled in schools in the same town without me even having to come up with an excuse. However, after a past revelation, this has brought about its own set of issues.’_

_‘Previously I had mentioned that I was having issues getting dates with girls, and what few I had seemed to go terribly. I have come to realize I may have been sabotaging my own efforts, subconsciously. Every girl I’ve dated recently has reminded me in some small way or another of my dear sister, Mabel.’_

“If this jerk blames me because he keeps pickin’ girls with winning personality traits and can’t keep a thing with them, I might leave him here in Fairy World…” she mumbled, pouting. It would be just like Dipper to find a way to blame her for his dating troubles, when she had been nothing but supportive of all of his choices, in the past.

_‘Well, this is apparently the problem-’_

Mabel fought the urge to slam the book shut and turn Rocky around.

_‘-because none of them measure up to her.’_

All she could do was blink. Measure up to her? What was her dork of a brother getting at now. Before she could read on, though, Puck vied for her attention.

“Ahem, Mabel? We have an issue.” She snapped the book shut and set it down beside herself. When she looked back up, in front of them was a wide chasm, with a roaring river flowing through it. Looking one direction, it seemed to stretch on forever. Looking the other way, she noticed an old, wide bridge that looked passable.

“This way, Rocky!” she quipped, steering her boulder-turned-steed. Puck quickly zipped around to hang in the air in front of her, hands stretched out.

“No no no, no! We can’t take the bridge!”

“Well I’m not swimming across, the water’s going too fast. And there’s nothing on the other side for grappling hook to grab, even if it could shoot that far! The bridge’ll have to do,” she argued, bypassing him and riding right up onto the bridge. Puck zoomed back over and grasped at her wrist. “We can’t waste time when we’re getting closer to Dipper! And I don’t understand why a bridge is dangerous, this is kinda how we cross rivers on Earth.”

“Please, Mabel, you have to believe me, this is dangerous, we’ll find a way around the river!”

She yanked her wrist away from him, and urged Rocky forward. No more than five feet away, the rock suddenly dropped dead as… well, a rock. She stomped on it a couple of times as Puck ran over.

“Mabel, you don’t understand,” he insisted as she tried to reactivate the sigils. When she had no luck, she simply shoved the book in her backpack and started across the bridge on foot, stubbornly ignoring her companion. He jogged over in front of her and set his hands on her shoulders, pushing back. “I know we’re hot on your brother’s trail, child, but if we don’t get off of this bridge before it’s too late, then-”

There was a scraping sound on the stones of the bridge, behind them, and both turned to look as a set of long, webbed fingers dug into the surface with hook-like claws. There was a grunt and a large shadow loomed overhead momentarily, and upon landing, shook the bridge. Puck gulped noisily.

Standing before the pair was what appeared to be the result of an unholy union between an orangutan and an alligator. It’s arms were easily as long as it was tall, with wiry, twisted muscles under the moss green, knobby textured skin, which had the reflective iridescence of an oil slick on a pond’s surface. A large, distended gut hung down between squat legs, each of which terminated in a flat webbed foot, each toe capped with a claw like that on the fingers. Wide set shoulders, covered with thin, greasy hair led into a hunched neck, and at the end of that neck was the ugliest face Mabel had ever seen.

The skull was long, around two thirds of it jaws. If a human nose could be placed on the end of an alligator’s snout, then punched and broken several times until it twisted at an unsettling angle, swelling to a cartoonishly large size, along with fat, split lips revealing needle like teeth, this is what the end result would be. Beady eyes sat higher up on the face, barely visible under the sparse mop of black hair that sat on the top of the scalp.

“Oh no,” Puck whispered. Mabel felt her knees attempting to gelatinize.

“Little ones,  
On the bridge squabble.  
Now treats for  
Gurglegut to gobble!”

The creature’s rhyming voice was shriller than Mabel had expected, coming out in a nasal hiss of sorts, from the very back of it’s throat. It hefted a club that, on closer inspection, was a tree trunk with the end of a dead stegosaur tail lashed to it with strips of hide. The spiked end was free to wobble, which while normally would make Mabel giggle, gave it a much more menacing feel.

“P-Puck?” she stammered, voice low. “Wuzzat?”

“Bridge troll,” he hissed. “Very big, very strong, very tough to kill.” His ears were folded back as he stared at the troll-Gurglegut, she guessed-his tail flicking. “Best to use fire, else they regenerate very fast. But that will prove difficult, given that-”

Before he could finish his statement, Mabel had unzipped her fanny pack, produced a sigil sticker, and slapped it on the end of her staff, and pointed it at the troll. With a split second of focus, she connected her will to the sigil, snapped her fingers and-

Nothing. She snapped her fingers again, and again, but the sigil did little more than sizzle, the paper curling at the edges and falling off of the walking stick. Gurglegut’s shoulders shook, hissing laughter as it stepped closer, walking on the knuckles of its free hand. Stance widening, Gurglegut gripped the club in both hands, eyes glittering happily. A long, flat tongue slurped over dry, cracked lips.

“Small child’s face,  
Fraught with dismay  
As water’s flow  
Cleans spells away.”

With an unexpected burst of speed, Gurglegut lunged, and Puck and Mabel both recoiled, ducking as the troll’s club swung overhead. Mabel rolled backwards, stumbling.

“What does the big ugly thing mean, Puck?!” she wailed, ducking again as the club whooshed by.

“As I was trying to say _before you endangered us!_ ” he shouted, words laced with venom. “Most magic is canceled out by running water, which makes casting near it, or maintaining a spell while crossing, nearly impossible!” Gurglegut lined up a shot and swung the club again.

“THAGOMIZER INCOMING!” Mabel screamed, pointing behind the Fae.

“Thago-what?!” he started, turning to see the incoming club almost a moment too late. He dove to the bridge’s floor, flattening out as it sped over him. Within a moment, Gurglegut was standing over him, hand preparing to pluck him off of the ground, mouth opened wide in a feral grin.

“Tasty morsel,  
Flat on his back,  
Now meat to slurp,  
And bones to crack!”

Before the troll’s fingers touched Puck, there was a twang, and then a bolt sprouted from the back of its hand. Gurglegut growled, hand snatching back as it inspected the wound. Turning to look at Mabel, it was met with the vision of her loading a second bolt into the crossbow, swiftly leveling it.

“You try to lay a hand on him again, and I will fill you with so much iron you’ll get like, Fae cancer!” she challenged. Gurglegut narrowed its eyes, then did something very disgusting; opening jaws wide, it stuffed the wounded hand into its own mouth and snapped down. There was a sickening crunch, and a gulp. It spat out the end of its arm, wrist a nub. Then, with terrifying speed, flesh extended, bones growing like they were in a medical video on extreme fast forward. Within the span of ten seconds, a new hand had grown.

“Human girl,  
Such a dolt!  
To think Gurglegut  
Fears iron bolt.”

She fired again, striking the troll in the chest. A hooked claw snapped the bolt shaft off just above the wound, and then oh dear god the troll _pushed it in_. The wound swiftly closed around the bolt’s iron arrowhead.

“Puck?!” she demanded.

“Trolls aren’t Fae!” he yelled back as he wriggled away from the monstrosity. “They’re a naturally evolved, sentient predator! Iron won’t work on it!” In a panic, she loaded another shot and fired again as Gurglegut began to draw closer, pushing them further across the bridge. This time she caught it in the eye. Gurglegut bellowed in pain, then simply wrenched the bolt, eye on the end of it, free of its skull and threw it back at her.

“So no fire, iron doesn’t work?! How do we kill it?!” she begged as she and Puck both turned and started to sprint for the far end of the bridge. Gurglegut loped after them, and much to her displeasure was gaining, bit by bit.

“We just _run!_ Killing it is a little bit out of our scope, currently!”

“How do we outrun it?! That big ugly thing is faster than us!”

“I don’t know! I can’t even fly over running water, else I’d carry us!”

Mabel’s feet and mind alike raced, the other end of the bridge seemingly miles away. She remembered hearing once before that trolls were weak to fire, where did she hear that?! Before she could remember, there was a sudden blur of motion as Gurglegut swung off the edge of the bridge and up over the other side. There was a thunderous crack of stone as the troll landed again, this time in front of them. Mabel wailed as a long arm swiped at her, ducking. Puck wasn’t so lucky.

The long fingers snatched him off the bridge’s surface, lifting him up, face to face with the troll.

“So fast you run,  
Oh little Fae  
But you shall be  
My meal today.”

In a blind panic, Mabel ripped the backpack from her shoulders and started rifling through it. Gurglegut lifted Puck closer to that set of drool-dripping jaws, tongue curling happily as the troll shifted to chomp down on its Fae victim.

“C’mon, c’mon, where is-AHA!” She hefted a jar up in one hand. “Hey ugly, I gotta rhyme for you!” With a well aimed throw, Mabel pitched the container at the troll’s feet. Glass shattered. Both Puck and Gurglegut stared down at the mess, where a slimy, pink and purple substance was swelling around the trolls toes.

“There once was a troll who loved rhymes,  
Who tried to eat us but then met a slime!  
And it was then,  
To the troll’s chagrin,  
For the ooze it was now SUPPERTIME!”

As if the words Mabel spoke had filled it with vigor, the slime suddenly went berserk, doubling in size and engulfing the troll’s feet and lower legs. Gurglegut let out a panicked cry, dropping Puck as it stumbled backwards. From the knees down it was coated in slime, which bubbled as the flesh that was held within started to melt.

“Wh… what did..?” Puck stammered, sitting up as Mabel came to his side, trying to tug him to his feet.

They watched as Gurglegut flailed, trying to free itself from the ooze that continued to grow in size, tendrils of goo lashing upwards, slowly swallowing the entirety of their assailant. The translucent substance let them see the troll’s flesh dissolve, unable to regenerate as the slime digested its meal. Within the span of two minutes, Gurglegut was a pile of bones, not unlike the one back on the plains. The ooze, satisfied, sank into the cracks between the bridge’s stones, vanishing from sight. Leaving only bleached bones. And, Mabel mused, the head of the crossbow bolt she had shot into the troll’s chest.

“Well he was a hassle,” she grumped, giving Puck a once over. “You doin’ okay?”

“Nothing more than some scrapes and bruises, no thanks to your stubborn attitude,” he grumped. She frowned, nodding. “Also, _it_ was a hassle.”

“Huh?”

“Trolls, they’re genderless. You called it a he.” She shrugged.

“Yeah, so?”

“So, if we meet any trolls in the future that are not immediately hostile-don’t roll your eyes at me, they exist! If we meet any trolls, that are not trying to eat us from the start, they are genderless. Do not refer to them as he’s or she’s, it will make them angry. Trolls are proud of how they are.” He rubbed at his ribs, where Gurglegut had been clinging around his midsection.

“How do they make more trolls, then?” she wondered aloud.

“Once a troll is large enough, typically a good two tons in weight, give or take, they develop tumors. Those eventually fall off and sprout into new trolls,” he stated. Mabel’s face was twisted into a sneer of disgust. “I never said they weren’t disgusting.”

“Point taken,” she agreed. “And uh, sorry for getting us in trouble like that. I should have listened to you. I’m just…” She hung on the last word, trying to think of what she wanted to say.

“Impatient?” Puck offered. She huffed. “I understand that you want to save your brother, and that our time is limited, but you and I made a deal. If I’m to get you through the Never-Ever safely, you _have_ to listen to me.”

Mabel pouted, then nodded, lifting a hand to rub a tear away from her eye. She took a deep, shaky breath, and stared down at the pile of troll bones. She had gotten herself and Puck into danger, but at the same time, she’d also won that encounter. Walking up to the skeleton, she poked around them with the toe of her boot. Then, with a smirk, she gave the lower jaw of the skull a well placed kick, launching it several feet away, and knocking a few teeth out in the process.

“Ha! Take that you ugly pile of bones! Try to eat me and my Fae friend,” she taunted. She bent down, snatching up the teeth and pocketing them before turning back to Puck. “Also, er, yeah, sorry again for the whole ignoring your advice thing. But, uh, the bridge is clear now! Unless there might be more trolls at the other end?”

“No, no, that would have been the only one,” he noted. “Trolls are fiercely territorial, and Gurglegut was a very big individual. If another troll tried to take part of the bridge, they would have been eaten.” Mabel nodded, and they started to walk towards the far end of the bridge. “Also, how did you know that would work?”

“That what would?”

“The slime! How did you know it would do that?” She blushed, rubbing at her forearm as she scuffed a boot on the bridge.

“I remembered Dipper tellin’ me about him playing some tabletop game with his buddies in high school, said trolls couldn’t regenerate if they were taking acid damage. So his character summoned an ooze on it,” she admitted. “Seems pretty silly now, to think about it.”

“Are you kidding?! You saved us, nothing silly about that,” Puck reassured her. She grinned, kicking at a loose stone as they walked.

“Actually, now that I think about it,” she began, “I seem to notice that a lot of stuff I’m learning here, I feel like I’ve seen or heard already. Like, in books and movies and games and stuff.” She frowned thoughtfully.

“Child, where do you think that your race got all of those ideas?! There’s a tiny hint of truth in most of it,” he quipped. “The human world is fascinated with our culture and kind, even if you never have the full story.”

“Okay, okay, I guess you have a point. Also, next time, Puck?”

“Yes, Mabel?”

“If I’m acting stupid, and ignoring you again when I shouldn’t, just be blunt or toss me or something, okay?” she requested. Puck’s grin was mischievous.

“Of course!”

As soon as they were off of the bridge, Mabel skipped over to a pile of large stones and set about making another traveling mount, which she quickly dubbed ‘Rocky Two, Electric Boogaloo’, and sat down on. Pulling out Dipper’s journal, she twisted this way and that with the book at arm’s length. Once it was aimed at the mountain, she noticed the glow growing stronger.

“Welp, looks like the mountain is still the way to go! Onwards, Rocky Two!” she proclaimed, pointing dramatically. Puck rolled his eyes as the rock started to trundle towards their destination. Mabel opened the book, trying to find her lost place. “Because none of them…”

_‘It started with June. I think I fell for her because she was always finding a way to laugh or find a bright side to any situation. However, we both agreed we were too young for anything serious at the time and we split up about six months into it.’_

Mabel remembered June fondly; the two had stayed friends for a year or two after she and Dipper went their separate ways, but had grown apart in general. She continued onto the next line eagerly, mostly because Dipper had kept his love life fairly secret from her. She wasn’t one to pass up on a chance to snoop!

_‘A month or two after June, I met Amber. She had braces and a fantastic smile. We only lasted for a few weeks, though, because she turned out to be pretty mean when we were alone. I wasn’t going to put up with the emotional abuse she gave out.’_

_‘Next was Lindsay, and I eventually realized I was falling for her because she was the artsy type. She even made a lot of her own hoodies, a lot like Mabel makes sweaters.’_

Mabel frowned with confusion; was he actively saying he was falling for girls because of traits they shared with her, or was she reading this wrong?

_‘Lindsay and I split up when I caught her cheating on me. I’m not putting up with that. At all.’_

“Good for you,” she mumbled, smiling. At least Dipper had learned to stand up for himself in the last couple of years.

_‘Last but not least, I got into a long distance thing with a girl that went by Smabble. She lives in Gravity Falls and we started growing closer last summer. We agreed to try and do things long distance, and I even made a couple of long drives to meet her.’_

Mabel remembered this one clearly. She had been so proud of Dipper, Smabble was a hella cutie! She was grinning like a fool as she read on.

_‘But, I eventually shot myself in the foot. Proverbially, at least. Things were getting heavy at the end of my last visit, while we were sitting in the drive in movie lot-’_

Mabel considered skipping this part. She didn’t need to know about Dippity-Do doin’ the do, after all. Right? She stared straight ahead for a moment, making sure that Rocky Two was still following the glow of the journal’s cover.

 _You don’t need to read about Dipper doin’ stuff with a hella cute girlfriend he had. You don’t need to know about him gettin’ his freak on, okay Mabel? … Mabel why are you reading that._ She mentally chastised herself, but read on, unable to stop.

_‘-and that was when disaster struck. We were making out, and we broke off a kiss to stare longingly at one another. She said she loved me, said my name like it was a curse and a prayer all at once. I was melting. And then I did the worst possible thing.’_

_“I love you too, Mabel.”_

“WHAT?!” she shouted. Puck nearly leapt out of his skin, head whipping to give her an incredulous glare. “Oh, uh, sorry. It’s uh, kind of… um…” She tried to think of what to say to him, while she kept reading that last part over and over. “Found a surprising tidbit in the book is all?”

“If you say so, just try to stay quiet!” Puck pleaded. She nodded, turning back to the journal as her mind raced; why did he say _her_ name?! What did he mean by that, was it a mistake?! And why, _why_ was she suddenly feeling a little more anxious about what happened next, than by the fact that her brother had used her name?

_‘Almost immediately all hell broke out. I couldn’t play it off that I had just mumbled her name and she heard wrong. No, I was confessing pretty clearly. I heard myself just fine. There were no stutters. The air in the car was almost so thick with tension you could have chewed on it. I drove Smabble home at her request. I apologized the whole way, saying I didn’t know what was wrong with me, why I said what I did. What she told me when we were driving up to her house, has stuck with me these last few months.’_

_“Dipper, I’ll admit I’m mad at you for what just happened, and now for the last few months. But It’s more because I seem to have served as some sort of weird surrogate for your affections, than anything. It feels like you were lying to yourself, not to me. I know your sister and I share a lot of qualities, but if you have feelings for her, you need to sort them out. For better or worse, okay? I say this as a friend, who loves you; don’t avoid what your heart tells you.”_

_‘Then she kissed me one last time, said goodbye, and walked up the walkway to her place. That night in the Shack’s Attic, I stared at the ceiling and tried to compile my thoughts of the last few relationships I had went through.’_

_‘June had Mabel’s laugh and positive outlook. Amber had her smile. Lindsay had her creativity, and Smabble had looked so much like her, and been so loving and understanding like she had. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I said the only two words I could think of to express what I had suddenly realized.’_

_“Uh oh.”_

_‘That was it. I love Mabel. I’m IN love with Mabel. And now, I have to make sure I never ruin her life. Even if it means I have to suffer.’_

Mabel noticed that her vision blurred, and then that a drop of water hit the line she was reading. She quickly wiped her eyes across her sleeve, sniffling loudly. She felt a hand land on her shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Puck asked. She quickly nodded.

“Uh, yeah, yeah! I uh, I just miss my brother and I think reading this isn’t helping, anymore,” she half lied. Now she felt absolutely miserable for how she had treated him up until his sudden kidnapping by the Fae. Yeah he was being a jealous little turd and all, but at the same time it wasn’t out of malice. He had noticed sooner than she had what a manipulative asshole Chad was. He’d tried to warn her, and she had just brushed it off as him being jealous of the attention she was giving to somebody else. She groaned, cradling her forehead in one hand.

On one side of the issue, Dipper’s behavior was largely uncalled for. He had been spiteful and shady with Chad. On the other hand, he had good reason, but it didn’t excuse the fact that he’d been a salty little butt dumpling. He had never sat down with Mabel and tried to rationally discuss it, it usually came in explosions of passionate gripes and complaints.

 _Oh Dip, if you had just TALKED to me, instead of being such a pain…_ She felt another tear roll down the side of her face. She quickly wiped it away, adamant she wouldn’t let Puck see her crying. That was a whole new mess of awkward she didn’t need today.

“Mabel,” Puck said, trying to get her attention, She waved him off.

“I’m not cryin’,” she insisted, but he placed a hand in front of her and pointed upwards.

In the distance she noticed an enormous, towering citadel that seemed to be carved from ice. Around it snow whipped in the wind, and the sky was a darkening gradient of purples and oranges. Light seemed to shine from only the windows, despite the rest being flawless ice. The more she stared, the colder she felt. More on reflex than thought, she untied the sweater around her waist and pulled it on.

“We’re nearly to the Winter Court’s base of operations,” Puck murmured. She turned her head, staring behind them. The bridge and wall of trees of the Summer Court were nowhere to be seen.

“How did we get here so-” she started to ask, but then rolled her eyes. “Oh, right, the landscape moves, gotcha.” Puck smirked, pleased that she had retained that tidbit of information.

“If we’re going in there, we’re going to have to be ready for anything. Where Summer is warm, loving, and emotional, Winter is cold, calculating, and heartless.” He sneered at the giggle Mabel let out. “Yes yes, I know it’s cliche, haven’t I already told you that your kind simply seems to adore these tropes?”

“Yeah, well, the book says Dipper’s through here,” she stated. She urged Rocky Two forward, and they continued their approach. Puck offered no argument, this time, but seemed… distant. As if he really did not want to be here. She decided to let it go for now.

They came to the edge of a deep, frozen moat. A drawbridge seemed to lower at their presence. Mabel dismounted her boulder, giving it a pat before dispelling the magic holding it together. It instantly fell into a lifeless, heavy heap. As they started across the drawbridge, she noticed the portcullis at the other end was made of thick, black metal bars that were frozen over with so much ice that it formed a solid barrier. When they were a good fifteen feet or so away, it began to raise, seemingly of its own accord.

“Well, ready partner?” she asked aloud. Puck frowned, but nodded, and the two stepped through into the castle.

-End Chapter 8-


	9. Chapter Nine

Everything was a blinding, bleached white.

The walls were a matte white, the floors were white marble waxed so that they reflected everything. The candle sconces seemed to be a polished, gleaming ivory color. The light, though mercifully dim, was bounced back off of the bright white that Mabel was momentarily blinded.

Once adjusted to the light that was searing her retinas, Mabel realized everything was also incredibly modern. Confusingly modern, in fact. The lights were fluorescent, there was a very quiet background noise of easy listening music, and sleek columns everywhere. There was a receptionist, sitting at a desk, flanked on either side by elevator doors. Behind the receptionist, mounted on the wall were the letters _**WC**_ in a mirror finished platinum. Seemingly oblivious to their presence, the receptionist typed away at a keyboard in front of herself.

“Oookay. Um, excuse me miss, my friend and I were brought here by-” Mabel started, but the silver haired lady Fae sitting at the desk hushed her with a raised index finger. After a few seconds of silence passed, she met Mabel’s eyes.

“Do you have an appointment?” Mabel could only blink. She turned to Puck, who shook his head with a crestfallen shrug.

“Um, nooo?” she replied. The Fae frowned.

“If you don’t have an appointment you need to fill out form WC-801 and take it two rooms over, down the left hallway.” Upon seeing Mabel’s quizzical look, she sighed. “Why do I always get-okay, you take this,” she explained, handing Mabel what appeared to be a stack of over two dozen papers on a clipboard, “fill out that form, and take it to Maeve two rooms over, left hallway.”

Mabel stared at the daunting stack of papers. The font was indescribably tiny, to the point of almost being illegible. With a tight frown she glanced down at the receptionist’s name plaque.

“So uh, hey Mab! I’m Mabel, I noticed that you and I have pretty similar names, we’re practically related!” she said, her voice adopting a smooth, honeyed tone. She motioned between herself and Mab. “What say we skip this whole process and paperwork jank and you just, uh, make me an appointment to see whoever I need to talk to ‘bout my missing bro-bro, eh,eh?”

Mab stared crossly at Mabel, then simply held up a quilled pen, as well as a tiny vial of the blackest ink Mabel had ever seen. It seemed to cancel out light in its presence.

“Fill out that form, take it to Maeve, two-”

“-rooms down, hallway on the left yeah yeah,” Mabel spat, cutting her off while taking the quill and inkpot. This was just great, now she had to do paperwork?! What the heck. She tromped over to a chair that appeared to be molded from a single piece of metal and enameled white, before having a white furred pelt stretched over it. Sitting down, she realized it was much less comfortable than it looked.

She began the process of filling out the paperwork she was now being subjected to, grumbling. The first page was simple; name, birthday, species (she figured that made sense, given where she was), zodiac sign, and whatnot. The next page was strange, but doable, containing items such as deeds done, sins committed, crimes guilty of, etcetera. From there it devolved into weird, crazy things such as favors fulfilled, enemies vanquished, slaves owned, meals eaten, allergies, blood types, allies, rivalries, names of rival, _their_ blood types and allergies, and so on and so forth.

“Puck, what’s with all this stuff?! I don’t know half of these answers,” she muttered. “Heck, here they’re asking me what kinda food allergies my pets might have! Why do they need this info?!”

“The Winter Court is very… thorough, in its dealings,” he sighed. “Where Summer is more free spirited and what have you, Winter is business, business, business. Cut and dry. In order to have witness with…” Puck bit at his tongue for a few seconds, hands clenched. “With the nobles of the court, you have to be worth something to them. Prove you have some sort of intrinsic value. People are a commodity.”

“That’s gross,” she mumbled, staring at the next page, which was asking for numerical values of her magical capabilities, and her known weapon skills.

“That’s business.” Puck’s voice was flat, mostly emotionless with a hint of sarcasm, ears twitching irritably. “Unless you’re the very tippy-top of the Winter Court’s food chain, you’re a resource and nothing more.” She merely hummed in response, scribbling away at the forms.

After what seemed like hours, she finally signed the last line. Standing up, she started down the hallway to the left, counting as she went. Upon reaching the second door, she twisted the handle and stepped into a large room, that save for the hallways and elevators, looked exactly the same as the first. Heck, Maeve looked exactly like Mab!

“Um, I have a completed WC-801 form I’m supposed to give to you so I can make an appointment to see… somebody?” she offered, extending the clipboard at arm’s length. Maeve wordlessly took the form, very quickly skimmed through it, and with a curt nod set it in a pile to her left. Mabel sighed with relief, until she found three more forms being shoved into her arms.

“Fill out this form in triplicate. The green one goes back to Mab, I get the blue one, and the red is to be sent through the slot on floor five, hallway seven for filing purposes.” Mabel just gawked at the silver haired Fae, and then the forms in her arms and back again. Maeve simply took a stamp, dabbed it in an inkpad, and then set about stamping papers on her desk. “Next!”

With a huff, Mabel tramped from the room and sat back down in a similar chair in the hallway. These forms seemed even more ridiculous, posting a bunch of hypothetical questions; what would her reaction be to the moon winking? If her teeth gained sentience, would she keep them in her mouth as her prisoners and slaves? Was it better to eat the heart of an enemy to gain their powers, or destroy their body to prevent their resurrection?

“What the…?!” She was bewildered. She showed one of the forms to Puck, and he shrugged.

“Ever do a stupid personality quiz when applying for a job? This is kind of like that,” he noted. “Unfortunately, as rigid and rules happy as the Winter Court is, their questions are a bit on the unhinged side, even for me.”

“Agreed,” was all she could say as she set about answering the questions. Or trying to. She would get to nonsensical things, like which was better to invite to a tea party, a manticore or a chimera? And she even had to back up her answer with reasons why! _Is Puck sure these folks aren’t total loons?_ At the same time, at least the manticore could talk and socialize at the party? She shrugged, and started scribbling her answer down.

After finishing this form, and then subsequently copying all of her answers to the other two, she set about distributing them. Green to Mab, the blue one back to Maeve, and then she and Puck boarded the elevator. Inside, it too was a stark white. Mabel pushed the button with a bold “ **5** ” on it, and silently the elevator began to lift, the easy listening music slightly louder in the tiny, mobile platform.

“So why do you seem so tense?” she blurted. Puck frowned, but she refused to look away. With a sigh, ears drooping, he shook his head.

“Summer and Winter have a truce. That doesn’t mean we get along. At all,” he offered. “I also have some uncomfortable history with the Winter Court, in general. I’d rather not discuss it.” Mabel nodded, deciding to drop it for now. The elevator doors opened, and both of them exited.

Each hallway was labeled with roman numerals, and upon finding _**VII**_ she shuffled along that way. While Puck’s history with the court was making him uncomfortable here, Mabel found that she wasn’t fond of how bland and sterile it felt. Nothing but the forms had any color, any life to it. Even the potted plants looked as though they had been bleached! The entire building had the eerie calm of a funeral home, and all the excitement of watching paint dry. Even Dipper would be bored here, she mused.

She found the slot, a faded pink border around it that matched the faded red of the final form she gripped in her hands. With a sigh of relief, she fed the sheaf of papers into it. There was a buzzing sound, then a click as a second, smaller slot opened in the wall next to the first, and spat out a ticket. With a confused frown, she took the ticket.

“‘ _Please present this ticket to Medb at counter 4, on floor 7 in room 3_ ’?! ARGH!” Whipping back towards the elevator, Mabel tromped down the hallway noisily, Puck wordlessly in tow. Up two floors, then down three rooms. Mabel noticed that despite there being four counters, only the one where this Medb individual (who, oddly enough, looked exactly like Maeve and Mab. Grey skin, silvery white hair, silver eyes, exact same face, everything) was sitting was occupied. And there was actually a line now; other living beings. While this helped bring color to the space, it also presented the problem that there was indeed a _line_. With a sigh of resentment, she sulked at the back of the queue, taking the time to observe the other’s that were waiting.

There appeared to be two humans in different spots (though they might have been changelings, for all she knew now. That was beginning to grate on her nerves), a centaur, a short, squat bearded fellow she was certain was likely a dwarf, and also a troll that appeared less primitive than Gurglegut had, with a menagerie of other Fae with a variety of skin tones mixed among them all. Not one of them spoke a single word, all holding onto their tickets tightly, occasionally glancing up at the “NOW SERVING NUMBER: “ sign above the desk.

The line moved at a pace a snail could sprint past. There was, occasionally, a grunt or cough, but little else. Mabel thought to start a conversation with Puck, but upon turning and seeing the practically dead stare on his face, she instead frowned and decided to leave him be. The only voices present were Medb’s even voice and the hushed responses of those at the head of the line. After what seemed like an eternity, Mabel was the last person in line, waiting, and stepped up to the desk, ticket held in an outstretched hand.

“Ticket pl-oh,” Medb said, a bit shocked to find the ticket already presented. She took it, and fed it into a small reader on her desk. It beeped, and she gave an impressed nod. Reaching into a drawer, she withdrew a pair of what looked to be hotel room keycards, which she slid across the desk at Mabel.

“What do I do with these?” Mabel half-groaned, picking one up and looking at it closely. It was, much like everything else in this hellscape devoid of color, white, with the letters _**W.C.**_ printed on it in silver. The back had a magnetic strip on it.

“You use them to get into your room,” Medb stated flatly, as though she were overstating the obvious. “Your appointment is set in the morning, by mortal hours. You’re in the suite on floor seventeen.”

“In the m-I have to wait even _more?!_ ” she wailed. She could feel tears threatening to well up in her eyes. This was not how she wanted her dashing rescue of her bro-bro to go. With forms and files and DMV bullcrap. She was nearly bored to death!

“Your appointment is _first thing_ in the morning. Everyone else that was in line will not be seen for the next _ten years_.” Medb fixed Mabel with a stern, unimpressed glare. “If I were you, I would be thankful your time is considered valuable enough to only be kept waiting another several hours.”

“Mabel, let’s just get to the room. You’ve had an extremely busy day,” Puck said, voice low. “You went shopping like mad, broke into the Never-Ever, got arrested by the Summer Court, broke a changeling’s nose, killed a bridge troll, and somehow survived the Winter Court’s appointment application process, sanity intact.”

She could only blink. Had it only been a day so far? She felt her legs wobble uncomfortably beneath her, the sudden realization bringing a wave of exhaustion with it. She nodded.

“Yeah, yeah you’re right. I’m sorry,” she mumbled. Medb sniffed derisively.

“That’s right, listen to the little shapeshifter.” Mabel wheeled around almost immediately, pointing a finger in Medb’s face.

“His _name_ is Puck,” she sneered, “and he’s probably the only thing that kept me from trying to burn this place down.” Medb visibly gulped, eyes wide. Mabel noticed, when blinking, that it took her a bit longer than usual, eyelids heavy. “But, yeah, if you’ll excuse my companion and I, I believe it’s past my bedtime.”

They left the room without another word. It was a quick power walk back to the elevator, and only once the doors closed did Mabel exhale. Puck snorted, reaching over and giving her an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

“Thank you for defending me,” he said. His voice was hushed, and honest. She blunk up at him with red eyes. “Most of the Winter Fae aren’t very respectful, towards my kind.” She merely nodded, a tired grin tugging at the corners of her lips.

“Yeah, well, you’ve kept me breathin’ and stuff, I figured I owed you one,” she yawned. Upon reaching the room, she swiped the keycard and the door opened wide. Mabel gasped, feeling temporarily energized by the sight. “Holy moly this place is huge! Just the living room is bigger than my apartment!”

The entire room was carved from ice, and despite that she could see her breath, she felt surprisingly warm and comfortable. Instead of normal furniture, a couch shaped pit was carved out of the floor, lined with blankets and throw pillows. There was a stone fireplace, with a low, orange flame quietly crackling away inside. On a small table there was a basket of fruits and cheeses, along with a small glass bottle with a cork sealing it, filled with a rich, red fluid. A small note card in front of it read _Please Enjoy Freely_ , and Mabel happily grabbed an apple and bit in.

The next room was divided from this one by a large curtain strung up in the doorway between them. In it she found what she presumed to be her quarters; a large ice slab buried under various furs was also peppered with pillows of various shapes and sizes. There was a small table beside this makeshift bed, with a reading lamp planted directly in the center of its square surface, along with a small alarm clock. She felt a tired smile overtake her face.

“Okay Puck, I think I’m jus’ gonna pass out now,” she said, drawing the curtain between this room and the next closed. A hum of acknowledgement was his only response. Without even thinking about it, she crawled into the bed and buried herself amongst the cushions and furred pelts. And then, once comfortable, she settled in, sighing with contentment. _I’ll find you soon, Dipper._

In an instant, she was wide awake.

She stared at the ceiling, brow furrowed as her foot bounced. Right before she had sent out that good vibes thought, she’d been ready to conk out, to hit the hay. Now she couldn’t close her eyes, what the heck?!

 _Is it cuz I thought of Dipper?_ she wondered. Her gut tightened. Her lips twisted in a thoughtful pout. _Yep, must be._

 _What about this is gettin’ you all nervous now, Mabel-Grabel? You’ve never been like this before. Usually you put your head on the pillow and boom, goodnight Mabel!_ She chewed on her lower lip.

 _So you miss your bro-bro, Mabel. But you’re gettin’ him back! You’ve made it this far._ She nodded to herself _. So then what’s doing this?!_

Memories of her brother, from before the dreaded bramble incident, rushed through the front of her mind. The awkward sibling hug after the first encounter with Jeff and his little band of ingrates. How he’d wrestled with Gideon-nearly to his death!-all to make sure the little creep would leave her alone. Then, how he had just up and leapt off of a friggin’ cliff to get her back from Gideon when he was in a giant robot! And that was just in the first month they’d been in Gravity Falls, all those summers ago.

Her mind skipped ahead a bit, to late nights where he would help her cram for a particularly hard math test. Reading lines with her for play auditions, the way he’d danced with her at prom when she had to dump her date for being a two-timing jerkwad. How in the last few months he would randomly appear at her place with a pizza or Chinese takeout, eager to share.

 _Hehe, guess you’ve always had a knight in shining armor, even if he’s a turd sometimes, huh?_ she mused to herself. _Then again, you’re kinda poopy too, sometimes. Not that we’ll ever admit it to him._ She smirked, amused by that thought.

Her mind wandered to how he had talked about her in the journal; always smiling, finding the bright side of anything, creative. She found herself trying to come up with ways to describe her brother, now; courageous, dependable, honest (well, moreso than her). He was helpful, he was always gentle with her. The smile on her face started to take a sad shift.

She couldn’t live her life without her brother by her side. She needed to get him back, more than ever. He was the yin to her yang, the order to her chaos, the Abbott to her Costello! She had never doubted that in some small way, he was a reflection of herself, and at the same time the opposite in the best possible way.

 _Why is all of this making my chest feel heavy, like guilt or something? I can’t feel guilty about how much I miss him, can I?_ She remembered the way she had felt when she was holding his shirt earlier that morning, how the familiar smell of him had made her skin tingle. That particular sensation did make her feel guilty, but why?

Every time she thought of that last line she had read in his journal, about how he was in love with her, and he would do anything to make her happy even if he had to suffer, her heart sank. He shouldn’t have to feel that way about love! Even if it wasn’t normal. Heck, when had either her or her brother been normal?! _Nobody should have to suffer for the one they love. Love is a big deal, but it shouldn’t be a bad thing!_

 _He loves me,_ she noted internally, _and I love…_

“Uh oh.”

=========

The next morning found Mabel and Puck sitting outside of a large set of double doors. They had arrived early, just in case, but appeared to be getting drug down to the wire. Mabel’s knee bounced impatiently, her stomach giving a needy growl.

 _Yeah yeah, I shoulda fed you more last night_ , she thought. Absentmindedly, she started digging through her backpack. Hadn’t she gotten food to bring along? Anything other than a package of fruit snacks or crackers would be amazing, right now. While rooting around, she pulled out the glass jar of biscuits. There were three of them inside, little bready things that looked like they would fall apart into crumbs at any moment. With a shrug, she popped open the cork and pulled one of the three out, then took a bite.

Strawberry hit her tongue in a vivid wave. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she chewed, humming around the mouthful. Glancing down, she noticed the biscuit was more of a jam filled cookie, that tasted like it had just been baked hours before. She quickly crammed the rest of it into her mouth and went to reach for another.

There were three in the jar. Hadn’t she pulled one out? She knew that there had only been three, right? She elbowed Puck gently.

“Hey, there’s only three pastries in here right?” Puck glanced down, ears twitching. He nodded.

“Yes, very good! I knew you could count to three,” he mocked. She blew a raspberry at him.

“No, you jerk. I pulled one out earlier, like this,” she said, tugging another cookie out, which left two in the jar. “There were only three in it then. And when I went to get ano-” she explained, lifting the jar up again.

There were three cookies. Mabel’s face twisted with confusion, and Puck gave an understanding nod before very, very gently pulling it out of her grasp, turning it around, and setting it back in her hand with the label facing her.

 _‘Everlasting Cookies’_ was written on the sticker there. Oh, right. She’d read a part of that when she grabbed it at Winkelmeyer’s shop. Duh.

“Oh yeah,” she mumbled around a mouthful of cookie. She extended the jar towards Puck, tilted slightly. “Want one? I got infinitely more.” With a smirk, he selected one and bit down on it. His face lit up, and he chewed with excruciating care, savoring the bite. His ears drooped behind his head, hanging loosely as his eyes closed in bliss.

While they sat and ate, they never even heard the door swing open. Nor did they hear the footsteps of the approaching Fae from that doorway. When they cleared their throat, Mabel nearly leapt out of her skin, spitting a mouthful of cookie crumbs onto the floor.

“The Winter King will see you now,” the Fae said. Mabel looked over and quickly gave them the once-over. This Fae was tall, and appeared to be mostly human. However, she realized that they also looked very similar. Too pretty, too symmetrical to be human. A changeling, maybe? They also had the same, piercing green eyes that Chad did.

Their hair was shoulder length, straight, and as black as midnight. Their skin was pale, flawless. They were also dressed in loosely fitting robes of white and silver, with a small brooch holding them together at the neck.

“Oh, um, thank you,” she quickly noted, bowing slightly before stepping past them into the room. As she entered, the changeling sneered over her shoulder at Puck. Man, he _must_ have had a history with them all to be so poorly regarded. Once they were both through, the changeling closed the doors and led them down the long entryway into the room.

They now appeared to be in a throne room, with tapestries strung from the walls, a long ornate rug stretched beneath them. Suits of armor and statues were tucked between the tapestries, each wielding a weapon that was straight edged and very, very sharp. At the very end of this room, behind a wide, half-circle desk was a throne-turned-office-chair, where the Fae Mabel could only presume was the Winter King sat.

He was as white as the rest of his building, hair and skin alike as bright as bones left in the sunlight for years in the desert. By contrast, his eyes were a very, very bright blue. So blue that Mabel felt like she couldn’t make eye contact for very long. He was dressed in a white suit, with a high collar that buttoned under the chin, and the body of the coat going to his knees. He had no facial hair to speak of, nor wore any jewelry save for a broad, golden ring and a filigree crown that seemed to be woven from gold wire by the tiniest, most nimble fingers ever. The points that rose out of the top also appeared to be razor sharp.

“Your morning appointment is here, King Oberon,” the changeling said, bowing at the waist. Oberon nodded.

“Thank you, Ashley. You may leave,” he said, dismissing his assistant. His voice was stiff, like a frigid wind that blew through your heavy sweater and chilled you to the core. The assistant nodded, and turned to walk back down the hallway that made up the bulk of the chamber. The king of Winter then set his eyes on Mabel, and almost immediately she looked away, for a brief moment. His presence was cold and intimidating. “Please, have a seat.”

In an instant a chair, carved from ice so thick and dense it was blue, sprung up behind her. She settled into it, and found it rigid, yet comfortable enough to tolerate. She then noticed that no such seat had been conjured for Puck, who wordlessly hovered behind her, to her right.

“Um, thank you,” she managed to say before the silence went on too long. “I’m here bec-”

“Because somebody snatched your twin brother, yes yes. Nearly everybody in the Never-Ever has heard about it. Why haven’t you confronted the beings of the Summer Court about their hand in this?” She gawked at Oberon.

“Um, I was taken prisoner, briefly, by the Summer Court when I first hopped into this realm. Titania said she didn’t know anything about his disappearance.” Oberon scoffed, face twisting into a sneer.

“A lie of omission, no doubt. The Winter Court does not hold your brother. We have no desire to engage in an act of war, but it would appear the Summer court is all too eager to goad us into one, now.” Mabel’s brow furrowed at him. “Taking your brother is in of itself, an act of war. His mind was touched by a creature of the Mindscape. He can serve as a backdoor into anyplace, if whoever took him can pick the lock. The only reason you would need such a thing is to unleash an army into the middle of the enemy stronghold, where it can do the most damage.”

“H… how did you know…?” she began, but he silenced her with an upheld hand, palm out.

“You filled out these forms, yes?” he asked, holding up a stack of file folders that had her name plastered on them. Inside she could see the edges of the forms she had indeed filled out the night prior, her handwriting glaringly apparent. She nodded. “Yes, well, despite some of your instances of declaring that the information we requested was unavailable, unknown, or not applicable, my Court has reason to take a great interest in you, Mabel Pines. If I can give you back your brother, somehow, I can stop this war from erupting.”

“But Summer doesn’t _want war!_ ” Both Mabel and Oberon shifted to stare at Puck, who had his fists clenched angrily at his sides. “We do not have any desire to-”

“Who asked you to speak, dog?” Oberon spat. Puck’s eyes glowed with fury. “I don’t care if I lost you to Titania, I don’t care if she makes you think you’re special. You were an animal here, and you’re still just that. An animal full of parlor tricks.”

“Hey!” Mabel fired back. “Puck isn’t just some dumb lapdog, he’s kept me alive and taught me what I need to know to make sure I stay that way!”

“Puck?!” Oberon chuckled. “ _It_ has a _name_ now?! Oh goodness, was that a gift from her airheaded majesty, the Queen of Summer? What did I ever see in that woman.”

“Do not speak ill of her simply because you _lost her_ ,” Puck snarled. Oberon glared. “You know as well as I do that she would never take you because your heart is as cold as everything else around you! You surround yourself with sterility and a lack of color because it hurts to think of her,” Puck went on, goading the King. “In fact I dare say my very presence in this room is grating on your nerves because if you were to harm one hair on my head she would never, _ever_ forgive you for it.”

“I COULD CUT YOU DOWN WHERE YOU FLOAT, YOU DETESTABLE MONGREL!” Oberon shouted, standing and slamming his hands into the desktop. The walls shook as his voice echoed. Mabel curled into a ball in her seat. “Do not think to challenge me in my own Court!”

“Oh, and what a grandiose court it is!” Puck declared sarcastically, floating to one of the nearby statues. “I mean, look at how lively this fellow is! He’s simply the life of the party! And oh, yes, that lady over there, the one who looks like she hasn’t budged in several thousand years, such a chatterbox!”

“Will you two stop it?!” Mabel demanded. “You’re acting like crybabies!” Oberon whirled to face her, and she shrank back.

“That mangy _thing_ you’ve drug into my Court was supposed to prove to Titania that I loved her. That I would willingly let myself melt into nothing if she would be mine,” he growled, pointing at Puck accusingly. “Instead, she decided that she would much rather take him in, and make him a member of her court! A phooka, a ranking official?! She did it to spite me!”

“She did it to prove that she is compassionate where you are not!” Puck roared. Almost immediately he and Oberon went back to hurling insults at one another. Mabel tugged on her hair in frustration, as neither of them would listen to her further protests against their behavior.

After a minute or so passed, and Mabel decided it was painstakingly clear that neither of them were going to be done for awhile, she tugged out her jar of cookies. She was about eight cookies into this gluttonfest when she noticed that it had gotten abnormally quiet. Looking up, she noticed that Oberon was staring at her. No, at the cookies.

“Are those… mortal pastries?” he asked quietly. His gray tongue slid over his lips. Mabel just nodded, still chewing at the current mouthful. “What must I do for them?” She swallowed.

“Say wha?”

“For those cookies. What do you want in exchange for them?” Mabel felt the gears start ticking in her mind as she considered it.

“I want to know where my brother is.” Oberon groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“He isn’t here,” he mumbled.

“Oh bull, I have a tracking spell going on this journal, I’ll show you,” she said, tugging it from the backpack. “See, the glow led me right-why isn’t it glowing?” The Journal was dead as a doornail, with no light coming from it at all. “It was just glowing yesterday! Puck, did the spell wear off?”

“No, I can still feel it going,” he noted, tapping a fingertip to the book. “It just seems… very confused while we’re in here? Your brother’s energy has come through here, in some form or another.” Both of them glanced over to Oberon, who shrugged.

“I told you, I have had no hand in his capture. I would not condone such an action. War is unthinkable at this time.” He sat back in his chair, tapping a finger to his chin. “If I were to offer assistance in you finding your brother, it would have to be indirect. I can give you no answers, nor send anyone with you.” He pulled open a desk drawer, and withdrew a small, sparkling gem on the end of a chain. The precious stone glittered from every angle.

“Wuzzat?” Mabel asked breathlessly, eyes sparkling just as the stone did.

“This charm will focus the energy of the tracking spell you have placed on the tome you clutch so tightly,” he explained. “I offer it, in exchange,” he continued, eyes shifting to the jar of cookies in her lap, “for the pastries.”

“You’d gimme that thing just for some cookies…?” she wondered out loud. The King nodded with enthusiasm. “Uh, yeah, sure! It’s a deal.” She held the jar out at arm’s length. Oberon snatched it away, nearly as fast as he dropped the chain and stone in her now empty hand. Almost immediately she felt the book in her other hand thrum, as if emulating a heartbeat. “Whoa…”

“Yes, very good.” Oberon plucked a cookie from the jar and shoved the entire thing into his mouth with one finger, chewing slowly. His eyes rolled into his skull, before closing. He hummed melodically around the morsel, breathing deeply through his nose. “This is all I can offer you, other than a promise that the Winter Court shall not interfere in your search for your brother.” He sat down, and pressed a button on a little speakerbox on his desk. “Ashley?”

“Yes sir,” came the changeling’s voice. From directly behind Mabel. She very nearly screamed. Oberon didn’t even seem phased by the fact that his assistant had reappeared so swiftly.

“Please see Miss Pines and…” he paused, regarding Puck with a cold stare. “… her companion, are escorted out. Our business is concluded.” Ashley nodded, waving with a single hand, towards the door.

“Very good, King Oberon. This way please.” Mabel and Puck obliged, Mabel eager to get back on the hunt, and Puck eager to be away from Oberon. Despite the amount of time they had spent getting to this point, the journey from the King’s chambers to the front door was nearly instantaneous.

“Thanks, Ashley,” Mabel said, still unsure of the changeling’s gender. Ashley nodded.

“If I may,” Ashley offered. “I would advise that you give up on your wild goose chase. At this point, war is all but inevitable.”

“What?!” Mabel reeled. “Give up?! I don’t give up. Mabel Pines does not give up.”

“Yes, but as far as anyone knows, if neither the Winter nor Summer Courts are holding him, odds are your dear brother is out in the Wylds, somewhere.” Ashley looked out over the landscape. “A twisting, shifting terrain that no map can help you traverse. At this point, Dipper is all but lost. Count your losses, go home.”

Without another word, Ashley gave them both a small push out the door, and all at once they were outside the castle, the portcullis slamming into the ground behind them. Mabel kicked at the frozen over bars.

“You’re a jerk!” she grumped.

“Wonder what his problem was,” Puck muttered. Mabel shrugged, but was somewhat happy to now know that Ashley was indeed male. Without any hesitation, she tugged the book free of the backpack again, and found their heading.

“So,” she said as they walked. “You and Oberon have more than just a little history, huh?” Puck grimaced.

“I used to be his favorite pet,” he relented. “But Titania admired me. He thought that giving me to her as a gift would win her heart. Instead she saw it as a chance to show him what true compassion is. It is not in gifts given, in the hopes that you will win a person’s heart. It’s the things you do in life, that show your true colors.” He frowned. “As you could see, Oberon is quite bereft of anything resembling color, whether on his surface or in his heart.”

Mabel frowned at those words, her thoughts traveling to her brother as she mulled over their meaning. He really had shown her true compassion; even on his bad days, his motives had been in her best interest, rather than his own. She felt a solitary tear roll down one cheek.

“Oh come now, child, it’s not that sad. I got out of what equates to slavery! Silver linings, you know?” She didn’t reply. “Ah, not that, eh? I’m sorry.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “We’ll find your brother. Even if Ashley says we can’t.”

“Say,” she said aloud as they marched along. “Did any of us say Dipper’s name around him…?” Puck paused.

“Not that I recall,” he mused, turning and looking back at the castle.

“Eh, whatev’s,” Mabel noted. “It might be nothing. The spell says Dip’s this way.”

As they walked along, neither of them took notice of a figure on the horizon. He sat astride an enormous black horse, flanked on either side by shadowy hounds. His helmet bore a pair of twisting, sharp horns that sprouted prongs at odd intervals, a gnarled hybrid of ram’s horn and antler. When he spoke, his voice seemed to echo around him in low reverberations, rather than project outwards as sound.

 _ **The hunt**_ , he commanded, _**begins.**_

-End Chapter 9-


	10. Chapter Ten

“When, pray tell, did you swipe the food from our room at the Winter Court?”

Mabel just smiled at Puck around another mouthful of apple, a wedge of cheese and the uncorked bottle of fruit cordial sitting on the rock beside her. A waggle of her eyebrows insisted there was far more mischief she got up to than she ever let on. Puck cocked a half smile at her, somewhat impressed.

“Hey,” she noted after swallowing the bite of food, “it said ‘enjoy freely’ on the card, and I’m pretty sure taking it all to enjoy later is about as free as it gets!” She picked up the bottle of fizzy, barely boozy drink and sipped at it. “You sure you don’t want any of it though?”

Puck shook his head at her, head swiveling about like an owl’s shortly after. They had stopped their hunt so that Mabel could sit and eat. They had chosen a spot that Puck promised wouldn’t be very mobile in the Wylds; a large grouping of stones, too heavy for Mabel to convert into more Rocky’s, with a few scattered shrubs among them. It was a scenic spot, which Mabel was very much enjoying, but Puck kept watching the shifting horizon like a hawk.

“What’s got you all paranoid there, Mister Goodfellow?” she teased. Puck frowned, tail flicking irritably.

“It feels like we’re being followed out here,” he replied, voice low. “And being hunted in the Wylds is not a comfortable thing at all. Creatures that have learned to hunt out here are typically very, very smart, and exceedingly dangerous.” Mabel crunched loudly into her apple as he talked, making him flinch. “Could you please do that more quietly?!”

She merely shrugged at him apologetically, lifting the journal back up to reread the last entry she had been through. _Mabel, we know you can’t just go ‘Oh hey bro, turns out I’m in deep for you, too! Let’s run off together and be a couple!” He’ll never buy that._ She sighed heavily, tapping the core that remained of her apple against her forehead. _He’s gonna worry too much about what would make you happier and everything. He’ll probably insist this thing in the book was just a phase and talk his way out of it! Ugh, why you gotta be so unselfish anymore, Dipper?_

She flipped a few pages ahead, to see if there was any more about his confessed feelings. At this point she just had to know more, know everything about the situation. Instead, she found an entry that made her heart sink, and face go white.

_‘September 19th, 2018_

_I have reason to suspect Chad, Mabel’s latest boyfriend, is not what he appears to be. I already didn’t like how possessive he is of Mabel. He even guards her from me when we’re both around (does he know about my feelings? How could he, I’ve even kept those from Mabel and I’m pretty sure she used to read my diary). When we’re alone without her, however rare those uncomfortable times may be, he confronts me about how I need to let her live her own life, and cut ties with her. But it seems more like he’s afraid of her than he is of me? It’s strange.’_

Mabel had noticed tension between the two of them before, so it came as no surprise to her that Chad had been trying to drive a wedge between the two of them. Especially now, given the whole changeling weirdness. But why would he be afraid of her?

_‘September 23rd, 2018_

_Suspicions about Chad more than likely confirmed. I saw his ears pointed one moment, then normal the next. When he noticed I had noticed something, he got visibly upset. Bared teeth at me. Eye teeth longer than usual when he did._

Mabel twisted her head to the side in confusion. “Hey, uh, Puck?” He hummed in acknowledgement. “What exactly is a changeling? I mean, we’ve dealt with two of them now but I don’t feel like I know much more than that they’re Fae that look like humans.”

“A changeling is a Fae that was placed in the mortal realm during their infancy, usually switching places with a human baby,” he quietly explained. “They are actually keenly aware of what they are once they develop the power of speech, though. They eventually learn to use magic to glamour themselves, hiding their true nature when when it would normally begin to manifest, like longer ears, that sort of thing.”

“So they shapeshift…?” she asked. Puck shook his head.

“No, there’s a veil of magic surrounding them that can change how they appear to others. Usually they use this to appear overwhelmingly attractive, like the one you rearranged the face of, until, well, said rearranging,” he noted, sniggering. “Typically they have unsettling features, much like a Picasso painting from when he went full tilt into cubism. They use the glamour to hide these imperfections.” His face screwed into a thoughtful scrunch before he shifted to look her in the eye. “What made you so curious about that, so suddenly?”

“Oh, nothing,” she fibbed, quickly shoving her face back into the book. A raised eyebrow was the only argument Puck offered before returning to his vigil. She sucked at her teeth in thought, trying to dislodge a tiny chunk of apple from the brace-wires in the back of her mouth. _Only two more months of these damn things,_ she groused.

_‘October 1, 2018_

_Chad isn’t human. Can’t be, I notice he always bargains with Mabel for a date. Has to have some sort of deal or agreement going whenever he wants to take her out. Might be a devil? Will research further.’_

Her brother’s handwriting had gotten scribbly and erratic over the last two entries, she noticed. That worried her; he only wrote like that when he was panicking.

_‘October 4, 2018_

_Mabel isn’t safe; she’s been dating a Fae. Looking into his behavior and apparent shapeshifting, I can only deduce that Chad is most certainly not human, but he hasn’t exhibited any traits of devils or demons. This only leaves me with a Fae, his behavior taken into account._

_Fae only seem to take an interest in people when it will net them some sort of boon or material gain. Why Mabel? Is it Mabel? Is it ME? He tries to keep her away from me but it feels more like he’s trying to herd her away from me, than keep me away from her. Whenever he takes her out somewhere without me tagging along, I feel like I’m being watched.’_

_‘October 9th, 2018_

_Fought with Mabel again, I hate arguing with her like this. I feel selfish when I know it’s not about my feelings for her. Still have that nagging little voice in the back of my mind._

_Also noticed a presence today; I am definitely being followed or watched by someone or something. Might sequester myself to my room in the mansion for a day or so, feel safe in here. McGucket really put up some top notch barriers after Weirdmageddon.’_

_‘October 11th, 2018_

_I can’t take it anymore. Chad is managing to drive a wedge between me and Mabel and I’m not sure what bothers me more, feeling like I’m being herded to the slaughter or seeing the woman I love be manipulated like this._

_I have to tell her._

_Not just about my feelings, or just about Chad. I have to tell her everything. In order to avoid having this journal hijacked I’m leaving it with my stuff at McGucket’s mansion. Hopefully whatever has been following me doesn’t find out about the meeting and follow me there, for both our sake.’_

Mabel realized all too soon she had reached the final entry. Her heart pounded in her ribcage like a mad drummer; Dipper wasn’t trying to break her up with Chad out of jealousy, it was because the little shit had been involved in something bigger. In fact she now had every reason to believe that he was directly involved in her brother’s disappearance!

 _Before I leave the Never-Ever, I’m gonna find that bastard and give him a skull piercing with the crossbow!_ One hand clenched into a fist beside her, knocking against the rock with an irritated rhythm. Her leg bounced, the motion somewhat soothing to her current fury. _Okay, Mabel, deep breaths! We gotta focus on finding your bro-bro first. Breathe in, breathe ou-_

“Don’t. Move.” Puck’s voice pulled her out of her own head, into the present. She looked at him, then followed his gaze to her lap.

Perched on her leg was an ant, covered in a layer of soft looking, purple fuzz. Her first instinct was to flick it away, but then she realized it was staring at her intently. No, not at her, at the apple core? She moved it, and the thumb-sized insect swiveled to face it, antennae wiggling. Yep, definitely at the apple core. With her free hand she snapped off a tiny piece of the core and set it on her leg, next to the bug. It happily snapped up the piece of fruit and skittered off.

“That wasn’t wise,” Puck hissed, but Mabel just shrugged at him.

“It just wanted a piece of apple, it was just hungry!” she insisted. She then noticed that two more ants had shown up, one red, one a pastel pink color, both fuzzy. “See, look, they just want some apple!” she continued, breaking off pieces for them. They both happily absconded with their given apple pieces.

Before she had time to recover, she heard a scratching sound on the rock beside herself. Looking over, a dark red ant, twice as big as the first few, had appeared, mandibles clicking. “Uh, okay here,” she said, snapping the core in half and setting it down. As this ant snapped up the gifted fruit, two more its size appeared. And then four of the smaller ones. Mabel stood up at once, trying to inch away. “Hey, slow down, I only have so much apple core to give!”

As she portioned out what little bit she had left, a sudden, sharp pain like a hot nail being driven into her foot got her attention. Looking down, she noticed one of the bigger ants had just stung her, through her boot. With a wail she kicked it away, then stomped on another.

“Mabel, please calm down you just need to run-” Puck started, but then she felt another lancing stab on her calf, where a smaller ant had crawled up. She flicked it away, and then all at once felt woozy. Before she had time to think, she collapsed.

=========

 _Heaven smells an awful lot like dirt._ Her nose scrunched, her eyes straining to open. _Or oh no, did I end up going the other way?! Am I in Hell?!_ A sudden throbbing pain in her foot and calf made her very aware that she was still alive. _Oh, ow, owie owie, that’s right, those bugs. Ugh._ Her eyes snapped open when she realized she had survived the bug attack.

At first all she could see was darkness, but as her eyes adjusted to the low light, she noticed she was hanging from a wall of a tunnel. From the smell of things, it seemed to be a fresh or newly renovated tunnel, as the scent of earthy loam was still strong. Trying to wiggle her limbs, she became acutely aware of two things; firstly, that her leg and foot REALLY hurt. She bit her tongue to avoid crying out in pain. Secondly, that she was bound in a webbing cocoon of some sort, which was how she was fastened to the wall. The sound of skittering legs below caused her to freeze in place, eyes rolling down to try and find the source.

The floor was a moving, clacking carpet of chitin and fuzz. Even in the low lighting she could make out the colors of orange, pink, red and purple, as well as the shiny black of the exoskeletons of her kidnappers. She felt a whimper hitch in her throat.

 _If I get out of this alive I am boiling every ant hill I ever find on my lawn,_ she swore internally. She wriggled a tiny bit, trying to loosen the strands of silk that made up her prison. She could feel her backpack and fanny pack, if she could just reach one of them, she could get herself out of this mess. As she struggled, she heard a hushed voice calling her name, strained.

“Mabel, where the devil are you?! These tunnels go on for miles, it seems! Mabel-oh!” Puck came around a corner, hovering dead center between the walls, ceiling and floor of the cavern. “Good, you’re still breathing!”

“No thanks to you, ya jerk!” she fired back as he flew over and started to pick at the webbing. “You could have done something back there instead of just telling me ‘Oh, no Mabel, don’t feed the bugs!’”

“First of all, I wasn’t in any danger! They can’t get me,” he groaned. “Secondly I did tell you to stop.” Mabel stared at him, wide eyed.

“What does you being in any danger have to do with it?! I thought we agreed you’d keep me safe!”

“Your wording, I will remind you, never stipulated that I keep you safe in the Never-Ever.” She gawked at him, ready to argue, when he lifted an upturned finger against her lips. “I, Mabel Pines, do solemnly swear upon my word that if you, Puck, of the Fae, help me get my brother free from the clutches of the Fae in the Never-Ever by helping me cross the Hedge, and help us both return home, alive and well, _without any sort of threat on our tails_ , I will grant to you your freedom. In order to accomplish this, I will require you to _teach me_ how to handle any sort of threat we might find on the other side.”

He spoke the words in her own voice, putting particular emphasis on a couple of sections. She frowned.

“See? I was only required to teach you how to handle things here, and I did that. You have your magic. I’m also only supposed to get you home safely without anything coming after you.” He nodded at the ants that seemed to be blissfully ignoring their conversation. “They won’t follow you home, and they weren’t going to eat you right away, so-”

“I hate you.” The words were flat, emotionless. Puck turned his head to stare her in the eye, and noticed she was crying. “I hate you! You let me get stung and strung up by all these friggin’ bugs just because I didn’t rules lawyer our deal enough?! When I get out of this place I’m going to chuck this amulet in a lake and curse you to be there forever!”

“You wouldn’t,” he snarled. She glared at him.

“You fuckin’ try me. New rule; I die while I’m in the Never-Ever, and you’re bound to this amulet permanently.” His eyes started to glow, his teeth bared. “I have altered the deal. Pray I do not-”

“Fine!” he spat. With a sudden rip, he tore the silk apart and Mabel spilled out onto the floor without any sort of grace, tumbling along and crushing an ant or two in her wake. Before the bugs could react, she was on her feet, walking stick withdrawn and a sticker slapped to the end. She pointed, and snapped her fingers.

A furious, yellow-orange flame sprouted from the end of the staff, cutting a swathe through the ranks of the ants. The smell of charred flesh filled the tunnel, and all of the ants froze in place, staring as Mabel walked through.

“Show me how to get the heck out of here,” she demanded, staring at Puck. He frowned and shrugged. “Wuzzat supposed to mean?” she asked, miming the shrug.

“Well, you see, these tunnels are made underground in the Wylds,” he sheepishly said. “They tend to shift with the rest of it.” She furrowed her brow.

“And how,” she asked, “did you plan on getting us out of here when you got me out of my chrysalis? Were ya hopin’ they’d have transformed me into a big old butterfly and I’d fly us free?!” She was furious now, but she felt that side of things dying down when she noticed the ants had started moving again. Slowly closing in around her and Puck. “So uh, hey, let’s worry about the argument later I guess. Can _you_ fly us both outta here?”

“The tunnels are too tight for me to carry you,” he said, a hint of regret in his voice. “Also, I was hoping you could use the tracking spell to get us out of these tunnels, but I don’t think our hosts appreciate that idea.”

She nodded, flicking the burnt sticker off of the end of the walking stick and pressing a new one in its place. She aimed down the tunnel, and with a snap of her fingers fired off another billowing cloud of ant-cleansing flame. “I say we just book it until further notice!”

She limped as swiftly as she could on her throbbing foot and leg, stopping every so often to either cut a path through the ants, or slap a sticker on the wall and create a fiery deathtrap. The ants, however, showed no signs of slowing.

It seemed the further they got, for every ant killed three more would appear. And by now they were a hissing, furious swarm. Following the twisting tunnels, Mabel hobbled for her life. A misstep betrayed her, and she tumbled downwards into a larger chamber. _Oh great, fuzz ant central!_

“Keep burning them!” Puck insisted, but she shook her head.

“Starting to feel the burn of all this magic,” she admitted, panting. “Gotta think of something else. Just get to higher ground!” she commanded, pointing at a high column of dirt. Puck didn’t say another word, merely nodding as he hovered over. Mabel paused halfway there, eyeballing the number of ants that seemed to be converging on her. A sudden flash of inspiration hit, and she started digging into the ground at her feet with the walking stick. Satisfied with her drawing, she hobble-jogged over to Puck before connecting her will to the sigil. With a determined stare, she snapped her fingers.

The sigil lit up, and then exploded in a geyser of water. Mabel grinned wide, laughing triumphantly as the water level started to rise. “Yeah, drown ya suckers!” she shouted as she and Puck reached the top of the spire. However, her pride started to sink when she noticed the ants weren’t sinking. In fact, they clung together, forming a wriggling, living raft as the water levels rose. “Uh oh.”

“Great, now you’ve drowned yourself,” Puck replied sarcastically. She stuck her tongue out at him, and began rifling through her backpack.

“Just shaddup and lemme think, I gotta have-aha!” She tugged her hand out, clutching to another jar. This one harbored the ricocheting lightning bolt, the glass thrumming in her grasp. Pointing it down at the water, she took  deep breath, gripped the rubber cork, and pulled it loose.

There was a searing blast of light, as well as a loud snap of thunder as the imprisoned bolt shot free in an instant, colliding with the water. The surface of the sudden, underground lake crackled, and suddenly was covered in a myriad of floating, fuzzy corpses, legs turned inwards. With a grunt of satisfaction, Mabel stuck a sticker to the end of her staff and pointed it upwards, at the ceiling of the chamber. A snap of her fingers and the dirt overhead was rent asunder, a shaft to the surface now present.

“Butts to this fartcave,” she grumbled, kicking a rock into the lake of dead ants. “Puck, get me the hell outta here.”

“I… yes, at once,” he mumbled, hooking his hands under her armpits and hovering upwards. Within the minute they were back out into fresh air. Mabel flopped onto her back and made a grass-angel, sighing happily. Looking over, she saw Puck’s crestfallen face. She frowned.

“Hey, uh, so I’m still kinda mad at you for the letting-me-get-stung-and-hauled-off-to-an-ant-pantry thing, but…” She sighed, trailing off as she rubbed her hands over her face. “But you did come down to rescue me so I guess I shouldn’t be too pissy. I mean, yeah, what you did was really crappy dude. But I don’t think I can hold a grudge too well when you tried to fix your mistake.”

“I… I’m sorry for misleading you when we first made our deal,” he apologized. “It’s simply in my nature, _our_ nature. Most Fae look for tiny loopholes whenever present. I didn’t think I would be able to ever call another human being a friend since Will.” His shoulders slumped as he plopped down into the grass, legs splayed out in a wide V-shape before himself. “I shouldn’t have let things get as far as they did, with the ants. But a tiny part of me knew I didn’t have to do anything just yet, which made it hard to act.” He swallowed around his tongue. “I promise to you, Mabel, I won’t let anything like that happen again. You saved me from being eaten by a troll twice, in one five minute span. I should have been a better friend.”

“Hey, so long as you promise to never let stuff like that happen again, we’re good, okay?” Puck’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, but he nodded. “It’s all good, then. Like I said on the bridge, just _throw me_ next time I start being ignorant or stubborn, okay?” Puck snorted, and then nodded.

“You have a deal!” Mabel grinned, rolling her eyes at his phrasing. Before either of them said another word, though, Puck’s ears stood straight up. “Mabel, get out the salt, now.”

“But wh-” she began, and he clamped his hand over her mouth. He stared at her, eyes locked on her own, full of worry. She merely nodded, pulling the salt out. “Okay, now what?”

“Circle! Around yourself!” Without any argument, she opened the canister and tilted it, pouring a steady line around herself until she was in the center of a four foot circle of salt. She shuddered as she felt the area under her tremble momentarily. She was just fast enough, it seemed.

Cresting the hill was a group of Fae. They all rode on various mounts; some on wild boars, others on deer or small horses. A couple of them were sat squarely on large Deinonychus, like some sort of Lord of the Rings meets Jurassic Park cosplayers. She noted, with some curiosity, that most of the riders were ugly little goblinoid creatures, with twisted noses and lopsided, uneven ears. All throughout the ranks large, spectral hounds snarled and snapped. One of the riders at the front produced a large horn and blew on it. Another bounced in his saddle eagerly, looking over his shoulders.

“The changeling said they’d be in the ant tunnels, boss! They was right!” it pronounced in a muddy, somewhat cockneyed accent. The other riders parted as a large midnight black horse with a tall, statuesque rider came forward. His helmet was like an upturned bucket, hammered into shape with a slot cut out for the eyes and nose. Twisted horns with spikes sprouting off in random directions sat on either side of the helm. A heavy, tattered cape of leather was strung over his shoulders, and the rest of his armor was made of similar material in overlapping bands, with studs of bone holding everything together. He carried a long, ornate spear with a crystalline blade, the tip jagged and vicious, edges crusted over with various colors of fluids.

“Um… Puck?” Mabel asked, voice wavering.

“It’s the Wild Hunt,” he mumbled under his breath.

 _ **Indeed.**_ The voice hummed through the air around them, heavy and commanding. Mabel locked eyes with the rider, the piercing blue stare from inside his helmet making it obvious he was the one who had said it. Or did he instead think it so loud it was audible?

“And what might we do for you?” she offered, a hint of sarcasm in her tone. “I’m fresh outta cookies if that’s what you’re after, Oberon took the jar.” A booming laughter came from the head rider, and quickly a wave of tittering giggles arose from his hunting party.

 _ **Oh, you are mistaken, human girl,**_ the voice corrected. The spear leveled just outside of the circle of salt, aiming directly at her eyes. _**The Wild Hunt comes for you.**_

“Wh-wha…?” She licked her lips, trying to wet them before swallowing. “Say what?! Why?!”

 _ **We have not had the pleasure of hunting a human through the Wylds in so long,**_ he droned on, and she swore she could hear him smiling. _**Your kind are chaotic and unpredictable when running for their life. It makes for an invigorating chase.**_

“Yeah well, unless you can get through this circle, bucko, I don’t see myself running anytime soon.” She nodded, huffing. Puck audibly slapped a hand over his eyes.

“Why did you have to challenge the King of the Wild Hunt?” he moaned. “I can’t throw you that far.” She looked over at Puck, eyes searching, then back to the rider, who had produced a wineskin. He handed it off to one of the little goblin men on the ground, who took it and approached as he backed away.

 _ **See to the circle,**_ he ordered. _**Once you are unprotected, child, you will have a brief head start.**_ The goblin giggled with glee, tongue running over his uneven, yellowed teeth as he uncorked the wineskin. Aiming carefully, he pointed the neck at Mabel’s feet and squeezed the back of the bag. A rush of muddy, discolored water splattered at the ground, and the circle’s power suddenly evaporated.

Mabel felt a sudden chill, and Puck clasped his hand on her shoulder. Turning her around to look her in the eyes, he spoke one word, desperate and shaky.

“Run.”

-End Chapter 10-


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter contains some violent imagery.

Ignoring the throb in her foot and leg, Mabel ran as fast as she could go.

When the circle had broken, she had suddenly felt an overwhelming presence of death, of her impending doom. The way those ice blue eyes of the King of the Wild Hunt had bore into her as he told her she got a “head start” had nearly locked her knees. But the real panic, the sensation of dread didn’t set in until she had heard Puck’s shaky command.

_Run._

And run she did, zig-zagging across the landscape as she went. What of that was intentional, and what part was caused by the way the world seemed to ebb and flow under her feet was unclear. She was acutely aware of the fact that she had never really noticed how the ground moved before, and wondered if the adrenaline rush from fear was causing her to notice it now. It was odd to set one foot down, pick the other up, and feel herself propelled twenty feet without moving as far. Turning was disorienting if done in the open, so she usually twisted her path near landmarks.

_Wish I had a spell to make all this crud hold still! Blargh, why couldn’t I have been good at chr… chrono.. Time magic?!_ she mentally complained. A whimper rose in her throat as she turned too fast near a small cluster of stones, the pressure on her foot sending a sharp jolt of pain through her lower leg.

“Son of a biscuit!” she half swore, collapsing for a moment, tears running from her eyes. She clutched at her leg, teeth gritting. Bracing herself against a rock, she pushed herself up, then put pressure on her leg until she was certain she could at least power walk on it. Spying a wooded area out in the distance, she began hobbling as fast as she could.

“Gosh dang Wylds, darn Wild Hunt gettin’ all Most Dangerous Game on me, this is bullcrap,” she muttered to herself, her gait determined, if unsteady. She managed to cross the distance with minimal need to readjust for the shifting landscape, occasionally raising a middle finger to the ground at her feet. “I don’t need this right now dangit!”

Finally reaching the gathering of trees, she hunkered down and listened for the space of half a minute or so. She didn’t hear anyone chasing her, or any of the hounds barking like she had as she fled the spot where they had met. Stealing the chance to rest, she let her brain try to make sense of her situation.

She was stuck, out in a shifting land, where she was being chased by a bunch of weird magical creatures out for her blood. If anything most of this should feel normal to her! There was just one key element missing; Dipper.

_Ugh, you were always with me when we did this crud, Dip. How do I do this without you?_ She sucked on her lower lip as she fretted, pulling out a few stickers from her fanny pack to look them over. She’d managed to sneak some more glitter stickers, like what she had given Puck earlier, along for the ride. Flipping through them with a groan, she stared at each, hoping the colorful animals would cheer her up. A parrot, then a frog, and finally a koi fish all grinned back at her from the plastic coated paper. She half-smiled, remembering when these images would have instilled her with confidence. At the bottom of the stack was one of her pre-made magic stickers, a cherry scented marker scribble that would produce fire when she made an effort to use it. Rubbing a thumb over the red ink caused a light bulb to go off over her head.

“Wait a dang dong minute, Mabel, you’ve got friggin’ magic!” She slapped herself on the forehead, and stared at her surroundings as she started to plan things out. She set about sticking stickers around the area; some on rocks, some on trees. She scratched a couple more into the ground at chokepoints. Next she grabbed the spool of wire and stretched it out a few inches from the ground, in a couple of particular spots, and then put the remainder of the loop into her pocket.

Last but not least, she withdrew both her crossbow and grappling hook, the latter of which, she wedged into the waistband of the fanny pack. Setting the crossbow, she loaded a bolt into it, frowning at her current count of nine. Before she could have another thought about that, though, she heard the eerie howl of hounds in the distance, and at nearly the same time Puck materialized next to her, panting.

“Bought you… as much… time as… I could,” he huffed, bracing his hands on his knees as he stood. Mabel cocked an eyebrow, clearly confused.

“Where have you been, what were you doing?!” His first response, one eye squinted shut as he wore a pained grin, was a wheezing chuckle.

“Shapeshifted into you, led them on a wild goose chase for a few minutes,” he stated. Mabel’s heart sank.

“Didn’t you say that was dangerous until I get you freed from these nails around my neck?! What the heck, man?!”

“I promised,” he panted, “not to let you get hurt again. Plus, as I also said before, I haven’t had a friend like you since Shakespeare.” He shrugged, frowning as the growing din of voices in the distance seemed to grow ever closer. “Sorry I couldn’t do more.”

“Yeah but, are you okay though? You aren’t even floating right now, you always float.” He frowned, and spread his hands out, mouth open to speak. Before he could utter more than a single, squeaky syllable of his reply, the howls got closer. “Okay we’ll cover that later. They’re after me, you stay outta the way,” she commanded. Puck’s only response was a nod.

Mabel took off towards the edge of the clearing, back towards where she had arrived in the forested spot. Climbing up on a rock, she withdrew her walking stick and pocket knife, whittling at the end. Her eyes scanned the horizon, ears strained for any sound out of the ordinary. The first thing she noticed was a shadow coming over the horizon. Then another, then several more.

The hounds had taken the lead. She whittled faster, standing her ground. She made it a point to ignore the throb in her leg as the hunting party crested the distant horizon, hot on the heels of the baying, shadowy hunting dogs. She sneered as she saw the horned helm come into focus.

With a deep breath, she focused. She felt her will reach out, tendrils of energy touching each sigil she had placed around the chosen battleground. Electricity seemed to run from her spine to her fingertips, skin awash with goosebumps. She exhaled, grinning defiant challenge at the riders that were closing in. Then, frowned sadly at the hounds.

“Sorry doggies,” she pouted, pointing the walking stick. She hesitated, for a brief moment, then snapped her fingers. The resulting burst of flame from the end of her staff was so strong, it pushed her backwards. She quickly braced herself, grabbed the stave with both hands, and used the enormous fountain of fire to cut a swathe through the approaching ranks.

The shadowy hounds yelped, bursting into puffs of dark cloud. Several of the lead riders and their mounts were going too fast and ran into the resulting wall of heat, shrieking. Once the fire stopped pouring from her staff, she used it to support her weight.

_Whoa, I know Puck said it’d be strong if I carved a sigil in this thing but DANG that was intense!_ Sweat poured down her forehead as she watched. When the fires started to die down, she saw the remainder of the party.

Easily a dozen and a half riders, along with the King of the Wild Hunt, sat waiting. Both of the raptor riders remained, as well as a few mounted on their razorback boars. The King’s horse pawed at the ground, snorting with displeasure at the dying flames. His eyes were locked on Mabel’s, and her eyes were on his. Even with the distance between them, she could see the displeasured squint. She grinned. He lifted his spear and leveled it at her. She lifted her chin in defiance.

All at once the flames smothered, and the hunters charged at her. With a rather rude gesture, she stepped back off of the rock and ran deeper into the area. Certain she still had herself positioned with her pursuers directly behind herself, she spun around and waited just beyond a pile of large rocks.

“She’s ‘is way!” she heard a voice call out, and the clamoring shouts of other hunters. Standing in plain sight, she waited until they saw her. Six of them crested the hill and charged, straight through the stones, shouting triumphantly. She raised her hand, thumb and middle finger pressed together. _SNAP._

Lurching to life, the boulders seemed to hum, shifting out of the soil. They lifted several inches, the low vibrating bass of the power thrumming through them resonating through the air. The charging hunters didn’t realize it was even happening until it was too late.

Another snap of her fingers, and the second set of sigils on the boulders switched on. The rocks crushed inwards, and nothing in their path stood against them; not flesh, nor bone, and not the cries of the doomed before the sickening squelch of pulverized bodies was silenced by the grinding of stone on stone. There was silence, and then the earthy thud of the cluster of stones, their flesh mortar holding them together, collapsing to the ground below.

“Six down, Mabel,” she told herself, pointedly ignoring the act of violence she’d committed in self defense. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew a length of wire, which was soon wrapped around her knuckles. She hobbled along, mentally shouting at her leg to shut up.

Soon she heard the hurried footsteps of those chasing her still; the death of their fellow hunters hadn’t even registered, it seemed. That or they were used to their ranks thinning out like this. Either way, their concern for catching her to do… whatever they had in mind, versus reconsidering as their comrades dropped like so many flies? It managed to make what she was doing feel even easier.

A goblin, sans mount, suddenly sprung at her from the treeline, shouting a battle cry. She whipped towards him, wire-wrapped fist lashing out and connecting with the side of his jaw. There was a horrific screech, along with the smell of burning, rotten meat. There was a clear, distinct line of warped, scarred flesh, purple and angry against the mottled green skin of the goblin. He clawed at his skin, moaning in pain as the wound actually smoked.

“She strikes with iron!” he wailed, grabbing a fistful of dirt to grind into the wound as it spread. A few more goblins, and a tall green Fae paused in a semicircle around her, eyes darting from her victim to her fists. She held a boxing stance that she had learned years prior from her Grunkle Stan. The first hunter to approach was the Fae.

Before he could take his third step, he recoiled, falling back and grasping at his foot with a cry of pain. Buried in the soles of his thin shoes were some of the iron tacks Mabel had packed along. He ripped the shoe off, grasping at his ankle, tears in his eyes. The other two hunters stared at the ground around her, and then one another as she stood firm.

“Well, you jerks wanted a good challenge, didn’t ya?! I’m right here, come at me, bros!” she shouted.

Her cheek suddenly hurt, and in the same instant an arrow sprouted out of the ground nearby. Touching her fingers to her cheek, she pulled them away to find red. Her gut twisted, and her anger boiled. She had just come so horribly close to having her brains scrambled by the arrow. She glanced back at it, then followed it’s angle up into the treeline. Gritting her teeth, she snapped her fingers, one, two, three times.

The stickers she had placed on the trees earlier burst into flame, and soon after the trees followed suit. Pained wails told her that she wouldn’t be dealing with anymore arrows from that direction anytime soon. She glanced back at the few hunched goblins that were trying to keep her corralled. One of them had his hand behind his back, and soon he’d whipped out a net, heavy stone weights on the outer edge. He smirked and started to swing it, building momentum.

“Oh for the love of-” Mabel started, before raising her crossbow and firing. The iron tipped bolt sank into his thigh. A piercing shriek, and the net fell. She took the moment of distraction, as his comrades turned to stare at him, to flee.

She ducked around a set of rocks and between two trees, and then spun off to the side, waiting behind one of the trees. At the sound of approaching footsteps, she lowered her hand and grabbed a loop of wire. Closer, _closer…_

With a yank, the wire was pulled taut, mere inches from the ground. It was enough to trip up her pursuers for a brief moment.

“Ha! For a buncha guys that supposedly hunt people, you’re all pretty bad at this!” Leaping back to her feet, she turned on her heels to run to the next trap. Suddenly, she felt her weight double as limbs wrapped around her, and she was driven to the ground.

=========

“Get out of my head!”

Dipper-all three of him, now-were yelling in unison. Or, at least his phantom images were. His captor was standing at the end of the stone slab, fingertips digging into physical-Dipper’s scalp. Or… even deeper? Were they actually going through the skin and bone like they were gel?! Gross.

“Silence! Not you, nor your fracturing psyche can deter me,” the figure spat. “Your role in this war to come is of great importance.”

“War?!” one Dipper cried. “What war?” another demanded.

“The Courts have sat unmoving for too long. Stagnation is not the way of the Fae; we are immortal, but we are to be constantly shifting, moving.” A derisive snort echoed throughout the room. “This truce that has held for the last several centuries has made things boring. Fae do not deal well with being bored, child.”

“But if neither of them want war, why are you starting this?! What does my brain have to do with it?!” one of the spectres shouted.

“Just because the leaders of the Courts are pleased to sit and gather dust like knick knackery, does not mean the underlings of theirs are so inclined to do the same.” A sneer appeared on his captor’s face. “And you’ve been touched by the Mindscape. If one were to find out how to undo all the layers of locks you have built on your mind, it creates an open way for us to funnel attackers to wherever else we may please. The Mindscape touches everywhere on every plane, but opening a door from one spot to the next requires an already created pathway. You are the gate.”

A salacious laugh that made Dipper’s (all three ghostly images of him) hair stand on end echoed around the chamber.

“And once I crack you open, the real fun can begin.” There were footsteps, and another figure burst into the room. “What is it?”

“The Hunt is after our… little problem,” a familiar voice replied. All three Dippers swiveled to stare. The wheat haired individual groaned. “Oh for Summer’s Sake, he has more defenses than the first layer?!”

“ _ **CHAD!?**_ ” all three phantoms cried out at once. Dipper’s physical form clenched his fists, face grimacing in displeasure. Not in pain so much as seething hatred. The Fae with their fingers in his head hissed and withdrew their hands.

“He knows you?!” they roared. “Why does he know you?!”

“I had to get his sister away from him somehow, to expose him for the taking!” Chad fired back. “Those two were nearly attached at the hips when I found them.” He glanced up at one of the ghostly figures. “And not in the way this one hopes they would be.”

The trio of shades all began shouting curses and threats at the changeling, the noise deafening and impossible to pick a single word out of. Immediately Chad clutched the sides of his head, grimacing. The other Fae whipped around and jabbed their fingers into Dipper’s skull, and ice seemed to shoot through his physical body’s pain receptors. All three bits of his psyche immediately fell silent, doubling over in similar manners as they grit their teeth in pain.

“Get out,” the lead Fae commanded. “You being in here is making his passions flare. It makes it harder to work.”

“But, A-” Chad began, but one hand came out of Dipper’s head and sliced through the air, connecting with the Summer changeling’s face noisily.

“OUT.”

As the various images of Dipper faded, he felt his own eyes open momentarily, gazing up at the Fae who was picking at his brain. Dark, inky black hair. Green eyes, and sharp features. The robes on their shoulders were held in place by a clasp that seemed very familiar. A knot of purple, thorny vines twisted around a silver rose. He opened his mouth to speak, but the Fae turned back to him and perked a brow.

“Waking up? Oh no no, I may be cruel, but even I don’t want you to be awake for this next part.” Leaning in, the Fae chanted, the words barely a whisper as Dipper strained to stay awake, fighting the pain as a hand weakly lifted. Before he could do anything more, though, his eyelids grew as heavy as stone, and his hand dropped.

Dipper’s world faded once again from blinding white to infinite black.

=========

“Get offa me!”

Mabel struggled against the tangled limbs that had wrapped around her arms and torso, face twisting as the smell of filth hit her nose. It was like a collage of porta-potties and unwashed hippies at a week long music festival, along with a rotting corpse in the summer sun thrown in for good measure.

“Oh good gravy, how do you sneak up on anything smelling like a garbage barge?!” she shouted, straining against the wiry limbs that were clinging so tightly. Her head bent forward, then slammed back into the nose of the filthy thing grappling with her. The grip loosened, and with a twist of her shoulders she had one arm free enough to press her knuckles to one of the arms restraining her.

A familiar cry of pain rang out as flesh began to smoulder against the wire she wore on her hand. The grip was released, and she found herself slightly insulted as a foot planted in her back and forced her away. She tumbled for a few feet, then forced herself upright.

The Fae that had grabbed her-surprisingly, not one of the goblins, considering the stench-was clutching at his forearm.  With a swiftness that seemed almost inhuman at this point, she locked and loaded her crossbow, pointing at him. When his eyes met hers, he shrank away in fear.

“Y’wanna live through this?” she barked. The Fae hurriedly nodded. “Then get the heck outta here. Ya get one chance.” He was immediately on his own feet and sprinting away. Mabel smirked. In the next second, an arrow thudded into the side of the Fae’s skull, and he crumpled to the ground.

As her stomach twisted, she turned to see the King of the Wild Hunt fire a second arrow, knocking her crossbow away. As she wailed in surprise, shaking her stinging hand, he handed the bow to one of his fellow riders. His head swiveled to face her. Her face went pale as he reached back behind himself and drew out his spear again.

_**Contain her.**_ At his command, three of the riders produced lassos, twirling as they goaded their mounts forward. Without hesitation she turned to bolt, her limping gait still putting a bit of distance between herself and the others.

“Puck, Puck you gotta get me outta here, pl-” she called out, but she was cut off as a coil of rope swiftly looped over her shoulders and drew tight, forcing her arms against her body. Then there was another one, and another, all three being pulled tight from separate directions. She squirmed and writhed, but no matter what, she couldn’t wiggle free.

“No! No no no, it can’t end like this, I need to stop a war! I need to save my brother!” she wailed, tears flowing as she watched the King adjust the grip he had on his spear. He fixed his eyes on hers yet again, and behind them she saw almost a hint of sadness.

_**Still yourself**_ , his voice rang out, _**lest you suffer when I strike**_. Her legs felt like they had turned into jello. Tears ran from her like her eyes were faucets, and sobs echoed throughout the clearing. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Puck jogging near, then pausing as she frowned and shook her head.  His ears fell flat and his expression one of horror, eyes darting from her to the crystalline spearhead.

“You can’t do this!” he demanded. “She wasn’t kidding when she said she has a war to end, now please, let her go!” he begged. The King of the Wild Hunt gave no indication he had even heard Puck. Instead, he dug his heels into his horse’s sides, and the beast charged. Mabel took a deep breath, and uttered what she was certain would be her final words.

“I tried, Dipper. I love you.”

As the gap between spearpoint and Mabel closed she noticed a red blur spring from the nearby trees, landing on the horse’s face, chattering with fury as the fuzzy shape clawed and bit. The horse swung its head and bucked, trying to shake the menace from its face.

_**STEADY!**_ The King’s command was ignored, the horse rearing. Mabel noticed that during the commotion, the tightness of the ropes around her had gone slack. She quickly worked her arms, loosening the coils around herself further.

_Oh thank god I thought I was a goner! Where is it?!_ she thought to herself, reaching for where she had holstered her last line of defense earlier. Her fingers found the familiar, molded plastic grip. With a shrug she was out of the ropes, rolling forward, and taking aim as she came up on one knee. She squeezed the trigger. A firing mechanism sounded, followed by the drone of a rapidly unwinding spool. With a quick tug, she felt the grappling hook set on the King’s armor.

_**ENOUGH!**_ The horse reared, the King’s rage echoing throughout the small forest clearing. Mabel wrapped the line around her wrist once, grasped firmly with both hands, and tugged. Time stood still as several things seemed to happen at once.

The horse toppled backwards. The King fell sideways out of his saddle, spear dropping swiftly to the ground. The shape of red fuzz leapt backwards from the horse’s face, and Mabel noticed a small white patch among the fiery colored fur. Spying the spear on the ground, Mabel rolled for it, snatching it up and quickly coming back to her feet. She wheeled around, and thrust the tip of the spear under the chin of the rider’s helmet.

“CALL IT OFF!” she screamed. Her call reverberated through the area. One of the other riders stepped closer, and at the sound of his armor shifting Mabel dug the spearpoint a bit deeper, causing the King to audibly gag for a moment. “Anybody I don’t like comes closer and your little hunt has a power vacuum.”

“Mabel, do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Puck’s voice asked, wavering with awe. She shrugged.

“Kicked this guy’s butt, thanks to…” She glanced over on the ground, where a tiny rodent popped its head up out of the grass. It’s fluffy tail gave a twitch, as it rubbed over its white furred ear. Her eyes widened. “Wait, aren’t you that squirrel that-”

“You spared my life,” it squeaked in a high pitched voice, worthy of any Disney cartoon. “I have been sworn to come to your aid in your most dire of moments.” It bowed, flourishing before lifting its head to stare her in the eye. “My life debt is repaid.”

Without another word, it turned and scampered off into the treeline surrounding the site of the scuffle. Puck and Mabel both looked at one another momentarily, and Puck could only shrug, ears perked.

“Mabel, you dehorsed the King of the Wild Hunt,” he went on. “He has never been forcibly removed from his horse.”

“So what?!” she demanded. “I do lots of impossible things, all the time! I learned magic, I gave Jeff the gnome dating advice so good _it friggin’ worked_ , I killed a bridge troll without fire!”

“Well, technically the ooze-” Puck stated, but she silenced him with a glare. “Anyway, that’s not the point. You dehorsed the leader of the Wild Hunt. You dethroned the King.” Face twisting with confusion, she looked down to the Fae under her spearpoint, who nodded. She looked up where his horse had fallen over, only to see a dark black throne, carved from the finest ebony, an array of horses and other riding animals carved into its facade.

“So, uh, what does that mean?” she inquired, withdrawing the spearpoint and stepping back. With a grunt of effort, the-now former-King of the Wild Hunt rose to his feet, and removed his helmet to kneel before her.

The first thing that struck her was his height; this Fae was _tall_. Down on one knee, he was only one head shorter than her. Next was the fact that he looked nothing like she had expected; his hair was wild, a mix of vibrant reds and browns reminiscent of fallen leaves. His skin was pale, like firewood before it catches flame. His nose, in contrast to so many of the other sharp featured Fae she had come across, was hooked and slightly crooked, as if broken before and set wrong. He had faint, but clearly visible scars across his brow and lips. Every feature on his face was very, distinctly, human in appearance.

And, finally, _he_ was actually _she_. Mabel’s brow furrowed with horrendous confusion as the Fae looked up at her.

“It means, that until you are dethroned or pass your duties onto another, that you are, henceforth, the King of the Wild Hunt.” Her voice was crisp like autumn leaves underfoot, and her smile had the inviting warmth of a campfire. Her eyes, however, were still that ethereal, icy blue.

“Whoa whoa, what happened here?! Aren’t you a dude?! I heard that voice,” Mabel half shouted, flabbergasted. The King laughed, and Mabel felt herself shiver; it was a sound of mirth, and passed through her like a fall breeze.

“The helmet has great acoustics, aye,” she said, placing it on top of Mabel’s head for effect. “Makes your voice boom with commanding presence!”

_**They called you ‘King’! Aren’t Kings guys?**_ Mabel shook her head, then yanked the oversized helmet off. That was freaky, hearing her voice thunder like that.

“Eh, it’s nothing more than a title,” the Fae admitted with a shrug. Mabel handed her back the helmet. “Now then, care to sit in the throne and lead the hunt, oh King?”

“I, uh…” Mabel stared at the carved, deep black wood hesitantly. “It can just be temporary, you said, right? Cuz, uh, after I finish what I came here to do I wanna go back through the Hedge…”

“Oh, of course!” The Fae grinned. “Once you decide to relinquish the throne, you name a successor and that’s that!” Mabel sighed with relief. Stealing a glance over at Puck, he nodded emphatically, motioning to the throne. She stepped towards it, but then hesitated, frowning thoughtfully.

“So, uh, Ma’am,” she noted, “you seem very… calm about all of this?” The Fae laughed again.

“It’s exciting! I’ve not seen another King lead the Wild Hunt for millennia! And, if you have the tenacity to spot a moment where the quarry is defenseless, as you did when my horse panicked, you will truly be a fun one to follow!” There was a fire in her blue eyes, and her grin was wild.

“Huh, works for Mabel!” she replied, a bit of cheer in her voice. She spun, then plopped her backside down against the stiff wooden throne. It was uncomfortable, but only for a split second. The wood shifted, sculpting itself, stretching and softening under her. When she felt as though she might fall, the seat maneuvered to balance her swiftly. She felt herself blink once, and when she opened her eyes, the throne was completely transformed.

A black, equine form stood under her, carrying her in saddle that felt as though it had been made just for her, and broken in by years of riding. An inky black mane fell from a graceful, slender neck, and a hoof pawed at the ground. When the horse threw back its head, a long, spiraling horn grew from its forehead, terminating in a needle-sharp point. Mabel grinned so wide, she thought her head might split at the jaw.

“I always wanted to ride a unicorn!” she cackled with glee, urging the steed forward, coming up alongside Puck. She reached down, hefting him up behind herself, the saddle suddenly accommodating two riders perfectly.

Glancing over, Mabel saw the former King mounting up on the elk of the Fae that had been shot in his escape, earlier, and reclaiming her bow from the other rider. She grinned at Mabel, her eye teeth sharp and gleaming.

“Tell us, King,” she called out as Mabel dug out the journal and tracking charm. “What quarry do we seek?”

“One of you said earlier that a changeling told you where to find me?” The former King nodded. A murmur of confirmation rose in the gathering hunters that seemed to be congregating around her.

“He seemed very insistent that you be brought down.”

Mabel felt a scowl cross her face, momentarily, and then she felt a fire rise in her stomach. An urge to chase and bring justice to those who had wronged her. A yearning to find her brother and make things right. And finally, the desire to run down a worthy foe and see them brought to submission before the Wild Hunt.

“Alright, here’s the plan, riders!” Mabel called out, turning as the book glowed fiercely. She hefted her new spear, and the surrounding riders cheered. “We’re hunting Changelings!”

-End Chapter 11-


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter has some pretty intense violence within.

It was dark on the outer edge of the Wylds, where they met the border of a spot where Winter and Summer lands touched one another. At the top of a rocky hill, with a light dusting of snow coming from the Winter side, sat a small stone and wood fortress, half grown, half built.

A menagerie of different Fae patrolled the grounds, as well as a few scattered frost trolls. Hulking things that looked like a hornless rhinoceros had been shoved through a teleporter with a silverback gorilla, and emerged on the other side as a musclebound, hairy brute with armored hide. A few were unarmed, and others held large, wood and stone hammers. It was one of these trolls seemed to notice the noise first.

It started first as a distant, whispered tune, [strings and the tinkling of piano keys](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DQBXqMr66tik&t=ZGI3Mjc0MTdjZGY2OTNlNzY1ZjE5NmZmNjYzY2I3MTE1MmY1YTUxYixzbjV5OWVZWg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgIhmAqJzE27JaEIMO0vR5g&p=https%3A%2F%2Fequilateral-asshat.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F149921721127%2Fa-hunting-we-will-go-chapter-12&m=1). Then it grew, louder, with a layer of louder, faster paced music. It was joined by the percussion of thundering hooves, and soon after a loud battle-cry. As the music and sounds of approach grew louder, a distant group crested a nearby hill.

A wild eyed, brown haired girl with a phooka seated behind her was leading the pack, atop a large, solid black unicorn, whose horn was blaring the music signaling their charge. Beside them was a taller, armored woman with a large bow, seated on an elk. They were flanked and followed on either side by a number of fellow riders, some riding, dinosaurs, some atop boars, and others still on deer. Various Fae made up their numbers, and they carried an array of weapon choices. The human girl leading the party pointed with a spear.

“ATTACK!” Mabel commanded. The rider beside her nocked an arrow and drew back, letting it soar only moments later. An enormous arrow, the length of a short spear, slammed into the chest of one of the patrolling Fae, instantly felling them. Another arrow was already being drawn as the first slew its victim.

The other soldiers around the fortress started to converge against the Wild Hunt as it bore down on them, and one of the trolls threw back their head and bellowed. It then grabbed a nearby rock, and hurled it like a professional MLB pitcher. The riders parted, the rock still too slow to take any of them down as they swiftly continued their collision course with the enemy forces.

Soon enough, the sound of Mabel’s unicorn playing music was drowned out by the sounds of battle. Foes screamed at one another, weapons clashed noisily, and the ground shook with every thundering blow the trolls lashed out with. It was utter chaos as the disciplined soldiers of their enemies struggled against the chaotic, predatory nature of the Wild Hunt.

While the majority of the Fae soldiers fought with spear and short sword, trying to create a phalanx to drive back the Hunt, nets and ropes would whip out and snag a weapon, or body, and suddenly the captured soldier was dispatched. One troll loomed towards the front line, ignoring the arrows that stuck in its skin. Snorting, it hefted its stone hammer, ready to swing. With a well placed shot, Mabel sent a crossbow bolt spiraling into its eye.

“Aim for the soft bits!” she shouted as the tall, female rider beside her cackled with malicious glee. She swiftly put an arrow into the other eye, blinding the troll before it could finish its pained bellow from the first eye being pierced.

“Y’heard the King, the soft bits are easier to get through!” the rider echoed. A rousing cheer came from the other riders nearby. Soon, the trolls were to distracted by having to pluck out ruined eyes, to let them regrow, to be of much use on the front line. Mabel raised her spear skyward.

Keeping the trolls occupied, it seemed, was turning the tide in their favor. Before she could call the order to charge, the sound of a horn being blown thundered from behind the enemy troops. The clip-clop of hooves on stone was faintly audible, and the shape of square shoulders and a hulking equine body came into view. Mabel only sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Gee, how unsurprising,” she murmured as Tiberius scowled at her. He raised his own spear, pointing the sharp tip directly at her.

“Oh look, it’s Tibbers!” Puck yelled, hands cupped around his mouth to project the sound. Tiberius’ scowl went from anger to blind rage.

“I know not how you survived the Wylds, or how you endured the doldrums of the Winter Court, but you will not trespass into this keep!” he cried. Mabel and Puck both twisted in their seat to look at one another.

“I think he just said I couldn’t do a thing, Puck. What happens when people say I can’t do a thing?”

“They either yield or die before they have the sense to,” he said with a giggle. Mabel turned back to Tiberius and leveled the spear’s point at him. The centaur scuffed a hoof along the ground.

“Try and stop me!” she shouted, heels giving a short jab into the unicorn’s sides. It whinnied and charged. Tiberius reared up, then met the charge with his own, thundering towards them, roaring as they drew closer.

His spear was aimed for her heart, and would have struck true, had she not suddenly looped her spear’s head around the shaft and spun it away as they passed. Tiberius launched out with his back legs, hooves meaning to strike at the unicorn’s haunches. Mabel saw the movement and squeaked, mind racing as the idea that armor plating would be a good idea.

In a flash, hooves struck thick, bony scales. An irritated grunt came as a club-tipped tail swung and caught the centaur’s rear haunches. Mabel gawked below herself; the unicorn had shapeshifted into an ankylosaur rapidly. Faster than she could even blink!

“The throne can do that?!” she asked aloud. Then, a triumphant laugh, which would have sounded to many like that of a mad scientist, escaped her. “Alright, we need more power in the charge! And horns!”

As her adversary managed to prepare for his next charge, he found himself facing down the business end of a large, black, longhorn bull, which trampled towards him. He braced himself and managed to deflect both the horns of the bull, and with a quick lashing of the butt of his spear, the strike Mabel would have landed. He thumped on his chest with his free hand, then groped down to draw a large, curving sword.

“Not enough horns, not enough power! More!” she demanded. As the bull turn on its hooves, it also turned into a large styracosaurus, stampeding towards the centaur with a bellow. Tiberius was swift on his hooves at her approach, dodging to the side and striking at the dinosaur’s flank, scoring a blow. Mabel’s mount trumpeted in pain, a long, shallow cut oozing silvery blood.

“You cannot win, child! I am a trained soldier of the Summer Court, I cannot be bested by the likes of-” Tiberius gloated, but he was cut short as the styracosaurus wheeled and molded itself instead into a large pachycephalosaurus, charging straight at him, domed skull lowered.

The battering ram of flesh and bone collided with his chest, knocking the wind from him as he flew backwards. He tumbled to the ground, to the feet of a frost troll that turned to see what had run into it. After being nudged to his hooves by the troll, the centaur swatted it away.

“Very well, enslaver. You want a fight?” Tiberius whistled, and directed the troll at Mabel, pointing with his scimitar.  “I want her head, and nothing more of her! I wish to fashion her skull into a new belt.” The troll nodded, and stomped closer, tightly gripping a stone club.

“Whoa-ho-ho, there, biggun,” Mabel hollered, digging into a pocket. She withdrew something, and flicked it at the troll. It was, surprisingly, dextrous enough to catch it. Pinching the small object between thumb and forefinger, it held it up to scrutinize it closely with an eye. It was one of the teeth she had taken from bridge troll’s skull.

“You might recognize that, belonged to a troll named Gurglegut, really big one! They’re dead now,” she assured the troll. “And I’m the one who killed’em.” The troll’s eyes widened, looking from tooth, to Mabel, and back to the tooth with a sniff. While it was distracted, she had tugged out a sticker, and fastened it to the shaft of  a bolt she had loaded into her crossbow. She pulled the trigger and, at the same instant, snapped her fingers. The bolt exploded into a fireball mid-flight, and sank into the troll’s armored hide, setting its silvery white fur ablaze. It honked in distress, grabbing at the flames in horror.

“Insolent whelp!” Tiberius shouted, readying his weapons. Mabel fired another bolt at him, but he flicked his sword and deflected it with ease. Mabel swore under her breath, and began digging in her backpack.

“C’mon, c’mon, I still have that last jar, I know I do!” she told herself. With a sigh of relief, she tugged a jar from her pack, but fate conspired against her. The second she had it free, the panicking troll’s thundering footsteps shook the ground. Her mount faltered, and her fingers slipped. The jar tumbled from her grasp and rolled downhill, directly in front of Tiberius. “Whuh-oh.”

With a derisive snort, the centaur placed a hoof on top of the jar and pressed down. Tiny cracks splintered along the glass, a web of fractures spreading under his weight. He grinned up at Mabel.

“I have heard tales of your jars of tricks, scum. How you used them to best the troll, to bribe the Winter King,” he snarled. His hoof lifted off of the jar. “You’ll not use it against me.” With a furious stomp, the glass shattered. Mabel laughed despite herself.

“Oh, oh my god, you’re such a moron!” she guffawed, Puck sniggering behind her as the mount she rode on turned into a large ram, curled horns glittering in the twilight. Tiberius frowned, then noticed his footing seemed very unsteady. Clouds swirled around his feet. “Bye bye, Tibbers! Have fun being a horse’s ass wherever you land!”

As the large sheep twisted and scampered hastily away from the centaur, winds ripped into being around him. Thunder shook the sky, the clouds growing, darkening as the small, infant hurricane was free to grow to maturity. And it did so with unrivaled haste. The sky darkened as it the clouds began to swell, a funnel reaching down to meet the twisting winds, and bearing down directly on top of the centaur. He was tugged skyward, plucked off the ground as easily as any child might grab a pebble. Then, with just as much effort, the winds flung him into the distance, his cry of anger drowned out by the growing storm.

“Mabel!” Puck shouted over the winds as the throne-turned-sheep hunkered down against a stone. “I think I see a way into the stronghold! Let’s go while the riff raff out here are busy!”

She nodded to him, then looked over to the former King of the Wild Hunt. She was storming through the enemy troops, axe in either hand, batting away spear and sword, slicing into flesh whenever a foe drew too close. It appeared Mabel had not been the first one to unleash a whirlwind of pain on the enemy. Hooking two fingers into her lower lip, Mabel whistled fiercely at the rider, who turned, then with a grin launched herself from her elk and sprinted over.

“How may I assist you, Mabel, caller of the raging storm?!” she inquired. The satisfaction in her voice, as well as the splattered, red ichor on her face contrasting against her bright blue eyes, made Mabel shiver. With a light toss, she relinquished the spear to its original owner, stepping off of the sheep. As soon as she and Puck were down, it quickly changed back to a throne.

“I hereby name you as successor to the throne of the Wild Hunt, and absolve myself of the title of King.” She smiled back. “The Hunt is yours to command again!” The King nodded, donning her helmet once more and seating herself on her newly returned throne. In a flash, a great armored warhorse sprung into being under her. She raised her spear skyward.

_**Riders of the Wild Hunt,**_ she called, her voice once again booming with presence. It was incredibly easy to hear, even over the storm. _**Take no prisoners!**_ Instantly a cry of wild, furious, predatory joy arose from the ranks of the remaining riders. Shouts of pain and fear came from their new quarry. The King turned, and nodded to Mabel. _**May you succeed in your hunt, Stormcaller!**_ With a kick of her heels, her horse charged, flinging her back into the fray. A troll cried out in momentary pain, and swiftly fell into two pieces, head and body cleaved from one another.

“Well, I’ve seen enough gory crud to give me substantial nightmares about all this for years to come!” Mabel chirped, turning to Puck. “Let’s go crash the house party!”

=========

“INTRUDERS! Intruders in the keep, int-”  
  
 _THWOCK._

The Fae shouting the alarm went down like a sack of wet laundry. The side of his head sizzled around a wooden bolt, the iron tip corroding the flesh around it. Mabel frowned, loading another bolt into her crossbow.

“Only got four of these left, and I feel like I’m runnin’ outta magic oomph,” she pouted. Puck gave her shoulder a squeeze as they crept down the passageway.

“We’re very nearly there, Mabel. We’ll sneak in, get your brother, get you home, and the Summer and Winter Courts will no longer have a reason to go to war.” He grinned, that mischievous, ornery grin he had given her the first time they shook hands. “In fact, having a common foe to strike down will only force them to work together! I do so love it when a plan backfires on a sniveling little pack of dissenters.”

She grinned at him, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was so exhausted, the only thing keeping her moving was the feeling that they were closing in on Dipper. The book was glowing so brightly now that she had to rely on the thrumming it gave off, like a heartbeat, to keep going the right direction.

“Yeah, that’s if I don’t murder the lot of’em,” she growled.

“Oh no no no, Mabel, trust me,” Puck countered. “Death would be far too kind. Believe me, Summer and Winter will have much worse plans in mind for the individuals trying to incite a war.” Mabel frowned at that, but was also starting to feel less than happy about how much death she had strewn about the Never-Ever so far.

“Yeah, let’s just… Let’s just get my bro-bro back.” She sighed, rubbing at her eyes with the inside of her forearm. Ugh, she hadn’t felt this tired in forever. They turned a corner as they walked, and a guard turned and spied them. The pair froze, as did the guard. Silently, the two forces regarded one another for a split second.

The Fae opened his mouth, and Mabel quickly brought up her crossbow. He flinched, breath hitching in his throat as a whimper, hands raising to cover his face and chest, waiting for the sharp pain and the slow, agonizing death as the iron on the end of the bolt poisoned him from the inside out.

After a few seconds of silence, he peeked between his fingers. Mabel was still pointing the loaded weapon at him, but the look in her eyes said, quite plainly, that she had no urge to pull the trigger. When he took a breath and motioned to speak, she tightened her grip.

“No please!” His plea was barked, swift and high in pitch. When he noticed she still hadn’t fired, he sighed with relief. “W-why is the Wild Hunt here?! We’ve done nothing to any of you.”

“We came here to find my _brother,_ ” Mabel spat. “You have any idea where they might be keeping a human prisoner?” The Fae nodded once, shaking. “Good, I can stop holding this,” she said, reaching back to undo the backpack’s flap and drop the book in. “You wanna survive this? Take me to the door he’s behind.”

The Fae nodded with vigor, waving for her and Puck to follow at a distance. She withdrew the walking stick, and used it for support; her leg was killing her. The last pain she had this bad was when she came off of her Smile Dip high. That had not been a fun recovery, and she doubted this one would be any easier. Every step made her feel like her muscles in that leg were turning to wet cement, and her nerves fired off with pain every time she put too much weight on it. Apparently the limp was becoming significant, though, because Puck gently placed a hand on her wrist.

“Are you okay, walking on that?” he inquired. She waved him off.

“I’ve had worse, it’s just really really sore,” she half lied through clenched teeth. “Not like you’re gonna carry me though. And we haven’t got time to wait, we’re too close for that. This isn’t one of my bro’s goofy video games where the world is in imminent danger, so they give you unlimited time to bake pies.” She grunted, pausing as the Fae ahead held up a hand. When he waved them around the corner, she began her slow trod once again.

Puck’s frown was one of sympathy, but he nodded and let the subject drop. The rest of the walk was quiet, and thankfully for Mabel, brief. They emerged into a chamber with a pair of wooden doors with metal pull rings on them. The Fae stood off to the side, fidgeting nervously as Mabel approached.

“Get the hell outta here. Find some back way, though,” she told him, “The Hunt out there was instructed to take no prisoners.” The Fae gulped, bowed in thanks, and scampered away. Puck and Mabel shared a look, and a nod, and then Mabel pulled open the doors.

For the second time in what was likely to be as many days, Mabel was blinded by incredibly white surroundings. In a parallel to the Winter Court’s offices, however, the stone here was also marbled with rich veins of smoky grays and bright gold flecks. Columns supported the ceiling, the light coming from an ornate chandelier of elk antlers. It was built in a circle, with six pillars in total spaced around the room evenly. A set of matching doors could be seen on the opposite side of the room, but Mabel’s eye was drawn to the center of the floor, where a large stone table looked to be growing from the polished stone. And, on that table-

“Dipper!” she cried out, crossbow and staff clattering to the floor as she limped to the pedestal and grabbed at her brother’s wrists.

His face was pale, and his cheeks a little bruised. He still had faint scratches along his arms, from the vines that had taken him. His hair was mussed, and his expression he wore in his sleep was slightly pained.

“Hey, bro-bro, wake up, c’mon man we gotta get you up so I can get you outta here!” she hissed. Dipper’s eyes fluttered open and whirled about for a moment, unfocused.

“W-wha, who?” Mabel helped him sit up along the edge of the table, then immediately grabbed him down with a hug. “Ack!”

“Ohmigosh, Dipper, I thought I’d lost you forever!” she cried, planting kisses on his cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me all that junk goin’ on in your head sooner?”

“C’mon, Mabel, geeze, where are we?! Why are we here,” he demanded, wiggling his arms free. She buried her face against his chest.

“Mabel,” Puck uttered. She gave no response, content to cry against her brother’s chest. “Mabel, please-”

“You shoulda told me about Chad sooner,” she mumbled. Dipper’s body tensed up. “J-just, told me to listen, cuz your adv-vice has never been th-that bad.” She felt his hand pat her on the top of the head.

“Oh, c’mon, Mabes. I might have been overprotective but Chad-”

“ _MABEL!_ ” Puck shouted. She whipped her face around to object, but the next thing she knew, Puck’s hands were on her shoulders. Her grip around Dipper’s torso released so she could slap him away, but Puck heaved and she flew backwards, towards the doorway they had just came through. She tumbled, landing on the knee of her bad leg. She mumbled a rather nasty word under her breath, then snapped her head up to glare at the Fae.

“What is your probl-” she started to demand, but Puck’s eyes grew wide. A glass, leaf shaped knifepoint slid out of his chest, horizontally, between ribs. Golden fluid started to dribble from the wound, and soon thereafter from the black skinned Fae’s mouth. “Puck, no!”

He took a step towards her, and faltered before tripping over his own hooves. Planting a foot in his back, Dipper shoved the dying Fae towards Mabel, a satisfied grunt of effort escaping him. Mabel tugged Puck into her lap, petting at his face.

“Puck, no no no, why, _why?!_ ” She felt tears pouring down her face, causing her eyes to burn, and ignored them. Her head yanked upwards, eyes locking onto her brother. “Why would you do that?! He was just trying to help me!”

Her brother smirked, then started to laugh. For a moment, it was that dorky, lovable laugh he had when she was tickling him. Then, it deepened. Smoothed out. Lifting a finger, he mimed wiping a tear from his cheek, then opened his eyes to stare directly into hers.

His eyes were bright green.

“Oh, Mabel, you spend all this time traipsing about the Never-Ever,” he taunted, his grin and voice alike taking on a predatory vibe. “You kill bridge trolls, survive both Courts, and even take command of the Wild Hunt, and you still fall for a stupid, simple little illusion!”

His hair went from brown curls to a short, straight, wheat blonde. His facial features sharpened, and his nose seemed to offset for a moment before straightening out again, if a bit blurry to look at.

“What’s the matter, darling? Thought you’d seen the last of me?” Her lips curled into a snarl as she groped out, reaching for her crossbow. Finding the handle, she snatched it up and aimed it. She pulled the trigger and with a pronounced _TWANG_ the bolt flew straight at his face. He tilted his head, the bolt whizzing by.

“Fuck you, Chad!” she screeched. “You’re a creep, a liar, and to be honest _ugly_.” She punctuated that line with a ‘so there’ nod, and her now -most-certainly-hated-ex-boyfriend curled his lips back, baring his teeth.

“Your brother is as good as dead!” he snapped, hand thrusting out, a jet of blue fire spiraling towards Mabel and Puck. she squawked and rolled behind a pillar, dragging the wounded Fae with her. He coughed, more golden ichor spewing forth. She whined and touched the handle of the dagger. She felt it pulse a few times, and recoiled when she realized it was her friend’s weakening heartbeat.

“Why’d you do that, Puck?!” she whispered. He reached up with a hand, tapping her on the nose. A tiny sticker bearing pink and purple lizard, sparkling, was stuck there, upside down, grinning.

“I promised,” he muttered, “to throw you if you got stubborn. Also, you’re my friend.” He gave her a sad smile. “And the only person to ever give me a gift out of the goodness of her own heart. Now, go show this broken nosed, insecure shapeshifted infant of a changeling what a real magic user can do with fire.” He took a shuddering breath.

“But I gotta save you! Can’t you like, heal if I take this knife out? It’s not iron.” He frowned and shook his head, pointing at the twisted nails dangling from her neck.

“No energy,” he relented. Mabel scowled, ripping the charm off of her neck. Using a marker, she drew a fire sigil on the floor, and slapped the charm into it. “What are y-”

“If you aren’t attached to this, could you survive?” she demanded. He shook his head weakly and shrugged. “Puck, I need a yes or no answer here.”

“It’s… it’s possible,” he mumbled. She nodded once, then grabbed the handle of the blade.

“I’m really sorry about this,” she apologized before yanking it free. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. “Also, deal’s off, homeslice.” She snapped her fingers, and the sigil lit up before a tiny inferno grew upwards. The nails and metal beads glowed orange, then a white hot before melting, and then disintegrating in the intensity of the flame. “You’re free in advance.”

His eyes flared with energy, and a blissful smile overtook his face. He nodded to her in thanks, then fell still, eyes drifting shut.  If he was breathing, she couldn’t tell. Her chin quivered. The sound of a clearing throat snapped her back to the looming threat.

“If the funeral arrangements for your lapdog have been arranged, might we get on with you dying so that I can get on with my life?” Chad droned, sounding almost bored. Mabel grit her teeth and stood up, glass bladed knife in hand. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and spun around the pillar at a dead sprint, ignoring the pain in her leg.

She cleared the gap before he could adjust his aim, bringing the knife to strike as she bore down on him. Unfortunately, he was too fast, grabbing at each of her wrists and spinning her around, her arms crossing over her chest as he dug fingertips into her wrist. With a cry of pain, her hand relaxed, blade clattering to the floor and shattering. He buried his nose in the crook of her neck as she struggled.

“The hatred on you is palpable,” he drooled, nipping at her skin. She felt like she could vomit. “Perhaps I’ll keep you alive as a concubine once I’ve taken over as King of Summer, so that I can enjoy your wretched distaste for me forever.”

“Yeah well tough luck, you creepy asshat,” she said as she strained against his grip. “Cuz I’m a biter.” With a growl of hatred she snapped her head down, teeth sinking into his arm. Her mouth filled with the taste of burning flesh. It was disgusting, it made her want to spit him back out, but his cry of pain goaded her forward. She dug her teeth in harder, and finally his hold on her released. She spat out his arm and hobbled away as he clutched at his melting skin. She spat a few times, then grinned at him, smile wide, every perfect tooth wrapped in the metal of her braces.

“You bitch!” he snapped. His hand shot out, curled into a claw, and another gout of azure flame whirled towards her. She squeaked and dove to the side, retrieving her crossbow and staff as she went. She huddled up behind a pillar, reloading her crossbow, then dug in her fanny pack for a couple of things and started to work.

Chad’s footsteps began to approach, and she cursed under her breath as the ripping sound of duct tape unspooling echoed around the room. With a breath to steady herself, she darted out from behind the pillar to the next one, staff trailing. When Chad glanced at her she chanced a shot at him, which he rolled away from, coming up on one knee to flick fire at her again.

“C’mon, man. Can’t keep a girlfriend,” she called out, taunting him. “Can’t hit a crippled target, and shoot, you’re having all this trouble over one little human? I mean, pfff,” she went on, darting to the next pillar, and then the next as his heavy breathing became agitated. “And here I was starting to think you were a big ole mastermind at this evil, manipulating stuff. Can’t even manipulate me into a corner.”

“THERE ARE NO CORNERS IN THIS ROOM,” he bellowed, and she felt fire fly past her as she spun away. She was at the next pillar before she noticed her sleeve was alight, and she quickly slapped it out with a squeak of momentary terror. The synthetic fibers of the yarn her sweater was knit from smoldered, curling back and turning a sickly black as they shrank.

“You bastard, I liked this sweater!” she swore, ducking out to fire at him again. He ducked down, the sharp tip catching his clothing and ripping at it as she ran a few more steps. He flung fire her way again, and she noticed it was getting less intense, less whooshy. She grinned despite herself, and ran a few more steps, still trailing the staff. She felt heat fly over her head, and ignored it.

“You’re nothing more than vermin! Once you’re dead, and your brother’s given us the gate, I’m going to cleanse the Middle of your kind! We’ll scour your childish race off of the planet!” She sniggered mockingly, then peeked around from her hiding spot and took a potshot at the changeling. He whipped an arm out and threw a lance of fire that burnt it to cinders in midair, but the distraction bought her enough time to run a few more paces before she hunkered down to reload her crossbow with the final bolt.

“Okay, baby, this is the last chance you have,” she murmured to the crossbow, rubbing the stock encouragingly. “One good shot for momma, okay?”

“Stop hiding like a sniveling little whore and face me! I thought you were supposed to be some sort of great warrior, conquering the Wylds and surviving a bridge troll!” He chuckled. “Then again, I suppose knowing you’re not good enough to save your disgusting brother would ruin your confid-”

A sudden springing sound, followed by a heavy thud, and a sharp pain in his foot shut Chad up mid sentence. He collapsed, grasping at his ankle. The bolt Mabel had just fired had gone down, through his foot, and just lodged itself into the floor far enough that the iron wasn’t touching his flesh, but the rest of the short arrow was holding him in place. As he wailed, Mabel hobbled around, dragging the stick behind herself with intent.

“Yanno, Chad,” she said, “I thought you might like to know what I was doing when I broke up with you, over the phone. You see, my buddy Puck, the guy you stabbed in the back, earlier, much like I presume you planned on doing to me-”

“FUCK YOU!”  
  
“Language!” she snapped. “As I was saying, you backstabbing, shapeshifting son of a bridge troll, when you called me on the phone, and I split up with you, Puck was teaching me how magic works.” Chad blinked at her, the expression of pain allowing confusion to bleed through. “I’m no good at summoning,” she continued. “Damned lousy at evocation!” Stepping back a couple of paces, she spun her walking stick around, then pointed it at Chad like a spear. To the end of it, she had taped a red marker.

“W-wha…?”

“Turns out, however, that I’m really, _really_ good with sigil magic.” She gestured to the floor, and Chad sat up enough to look around himself. She had been drawing a large symbol on the floor throughout the entire chase. “I’m really good at doing fire with them!” She knelt down, so his eyes were level with hers, from several feet away. “And when you piss me off? A sigil a quarter this size put a volcano to shame.”

He gulped. “S-so what?”

“Well, bucko, turns out not only did you not tell me you knew about Dipper getting kidnapped,” she explained, scowl deepening, “buuut it seems you’re kinda responsible! And nothing, I mean _nothing_ pisses me off like being used to get to my loved ones. Last guy who did that was Bill Cipher.”

Chad’s eyes grew wide with the very sudden, and very real realization that his lifespan was now being counted in seconds. Mabel held up a hand, thumbtip pressed to the end of her forefinger.

“Burn.”

_SNAP._

The room immediately turned into a blast furnace. Chad’s wails of pain were drowned out by the roar of the flames as they licked the ceiling, the force of the heat causing Mabel to back off several paces. The fire blazed for nearly half a minute, then finally died with a somewhat amusing _foomp_ , like a blowtorch being switched off while the flame is still burning.

All that remained of her ex was a charred skeleton. She stood up as straight as she could muster, shrugging the book bag off of her shoulders. Tugging the book free, she held it up. With a perked brow, she spun towards the closed set of doors opposite of those she had entered this room from. The book practically vibrated in her grasp.

“Okay, Dipper, I’m comin’ for ya.”

Grabbing one of the handles, she swung the door open.

-End Chapter 12-


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Mabel’s first thought was of slight disappointment. This new room looked almost exactly like the last one. Maybe more oblong than circular, but it was still round and had columns lining the walls. Okay, so maybe less columns, but they were still present. There was also a chandelier made of various horns and antlers hanging from the ceiling, which is something she was certain the last room hadn’t possessed among its decor.

Her second thought was one of elation; she saw Dipper-this time she was absolutely certain it was the real one-laying on yet another stone slab that was growing up out of the floor. There were two primary reasons she suspected this Dipper was hers, and not some other copycat Fae poop-nozzle trying to pull a fast one on her. Firstly, was the look of discomfort on his face; he always made that face when his head hurt. Secondly, however, was the fact that there was somebody with their fingers jammed into his head. Somebody she recognized.

“Well don’t that just figure,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. The changeling glanced up, and smirked at her. “So hey there, Ashley, gonna have to kindly ask you dig your fingers out of my brother’s head and back off before I’m forced to end you.”

“Oh please,” he sneered, shaking his head. “What makes you think you have anything on me? I’m almost through all of the locks on your brother’s mind. Soon his consciousness will serve as the gateway through the Mindscape I so desperately need for my plans to go into motion.”

“Pffff, puh-lease,” she countered. “I just ended your-I can only presume weirdly rapey lover?-back there in the last room.” She gestured with a thumb over her shoulder, pointing to the pile of charred bones. “I put him down, what makes you think I can’t do the same to you?”

“Because I could easily rip your brother’s skull open before you had the chance to do anything about it.” He snorted with derision. “And while that would inconvenience me in my ultimate goal, I still don’t think you’re willing to take the risk. Besides,” he paused for effect, closing his eyes. The floor surrounding him and Dipper split open, and slithering from the new fault lines came vines. Purple vines, bristling with wicked thorns. “You would have to give me reason to think you could even get close enough.”

“Ha! I can do some pretty wicked magic. What, you think I packed a flamethrower through the Never-Ever to barbecue my ex boyfriend? I might have my connections, but Mabel doesn’t know where to get herself a flammenwerfer.” Ashley narrowed his eyes at her, and she managed to keep a confident smile plastered on her face as she slowly walked a circle around the room. Every time she passed a pillar, she tapped it with her hand, quietly whispering a ‘boop’ to herself.

“You might have magical aptitude,” he conceded, “but I would like to assume you’re running low. You’d have to rip into your own soul, right now, to do anything substantial enough to harm me. Even then you run the risk of hurting your dear brother.” He mockingly pouted as he reached the end of that line, pretending to sniffle at her.

She did her best to avoid letting it show that he was right about her running low on the magic side of things. Leaving Chad as a pile of bones had taken quite the toll on her reserves, and somewhere in the pit of her stomach she felt a hollow, pulsing emptiness. It made her queasy to even think of throwing out anymore magic right now.

“Yeah well, I bet you’re pretty ugly under all that woo-woo makeup you changelings fartfaces like to wear!” she shouted. His expression was, to say the least, that of somebody who was in no way impressed or insulted, just disappointed. However, it twisted into one of irritation in the next second.

Dipper had stirred.

“No no no, you have to stay asleep, I laid that fancy little curse on you to keep you asleep,” he growled, fingers twisting about inside Dipper’s skull. Her brother visibly flinched, despite being out cold.

“Did I hear Mabel?” a familiar voice rang out to one side. Mabel spun towards it, catching a fleeting glimpse of a wispy figure.

“It was Mabel!” it called out again, from the other way. She spun again, catching more of it in her vision. Was that Dipper?

“Bro-bro?!” she half yelled, turning in circles.

“Shut up, all of you!” Ashley snapped, ultimately ignored. Mabel kept meandering the perimeter of the room, spinning this way and that.

“Dipper I’m here to help, we just gotta wake you up and get this Fae jerkwad out of your head! Er, maybe not in that order.”

“What does it matter if Mabel’s here,” one phantom Dipper muttered. “We’re almost beaten down, I’m losing grip on my mental barriers.”

“Dipper please, just hold on a little longer!” she wailed. “It’s not pointless, I made it this far!”

“I said _SHUT UP!_ ” One hand yanked free from Dipper’s forehead and sprang out in Mabel’s direction, and like a nest of trained vipers, the brambles lashed out. Three managed to catch her, getting both legs and her left wrist, slamming her against the wall behind herself. “I need _quiet_ to do my work, thank you.”

She screamed in pain; those thorns _hurt_. They didn’t just dig in, they burnt. It was agonizing, nauseating. Her stomach churned and her vision blurred. Through one, cracked open eye she saw a victorious smirk take its place on Ashley’s face, which was getting more and more punchable by the moment. Gritting her teeth, she took a deep breath.

“This is gonna hurt,” she told herself, her right arm lifting. Ashley glanced up at the sound of her voice.

“What are you prattling on ab-”

_Snap._

Behind Ashley, against one of the pillars, a sticker sizzled. As Mabel felt her magical reserves run dry, a shredding feeling inside of her torso caused her to wince. She knew, somehow, there was no physical damage, but good lord did it ever _feel_ like there was. It felt like her ribcage had been split open from the inside, with a weird, phallic looking alien poking its head out into the world to terrify onlookers. And then, all at once, the pain ceased, and the sticker didn’t just spit fire, it literally went boom.

A small explosion rocked the room, a burst of flame washing out towards the changeling and her brother. The pillar splintered along its circumference. Ashley recoiled away from the flames. The vines loosened their grip and dropped Mabel. She hit the floor on her good leg, and rolled to absorb the impact. As Ashley spun back around to face her, she had already drawn and fired the grappling hook, latching onto the chandelier and swinging in to land directly over her brother.

“How dare yo-” he started, but he was interrupted once again. By one of the strongest forces known to mankind; the Pines family left hook.

Knuckles collided with face, followed by a stomach churning crunch. He spun about, falling to his hands and knees. Mabel took the chance to retract the grappling hook and aim it at him. He spit into an open palm, producing two teeth.

“You’ll pay for this with your life!” he snarled. “But only after I’ve won my war and disposed of your brother so he may not be used against me. Only after seeing everything you’ve worked so hard for fall will you-”

Mabel squeezed the trigger. Ashley, with startling reflexes, sidestepped as it flew past him, then whipped back around to face Mabel.

“It won’t work on me twice, you know,” he growled. Mabel smirked, and, pulling the line taut, yanked. His face twisted with confusion, and then washed over with dread as the sound of stone grinding against stone was swiftly replaced with a sudden _CRUNCH_.

The pillar tumbled down and landed squarely on top of him, pinning both legs down. He roared, in equal amounts of pain and fury.  The vines surrounding her and her brother started to wilt.

“YOU BITCH!”

“Now then,” she huffed, stepping down and across the withering vines. “Are ya ready to negotiate terms? Because things aren’t looking so good for you right now.”

“Unlike the majority of the rest of my kind,” he spat, “I know better than to try and make deals with the children of the Middle. I mean, look what it got your ‘friend’ Puck!” Squatting down, she slapped him across the mouth.

“You do not speak about him,” she said with a flat tone. “Now then, I’m going to wake up my brother, and we’re going to leave. And you’re going to stay far, far away from us and our loved ones for the rest of our foreseeable lives, and for a very long time after that you’re going to leave our entire family alone. You’ll never come near anybody related to the Pines in any way, shape, or form again, or else you’ll look back on today and think ‘Wow, it sure was nice of Mabel to only knock out two teeth and shatter my femurs!’”

She wasn’t sure how to react when Ashley started to shake with laughter. When he looked back up at her, wild eyed, it was a manic look, one of a man with nothing left to lose.

“You’ll never be able to wake him up!” he cackled. “I cursed him, and only one thing can break a slumber curse!”

“What? Pfff, please, I helped end Bill Cipher’s reign of terror, I can break a silly little curse,” she muttered. Ashley shook his head.

“You don’t get it!” he sniggered, propping himself up on his elbows. “To wake him up, you need to give him the one thing he’ll never think he’ll have.”

“Man you Fae are all weirdos,” she groused. “Besides, aren’t sleep curses usually broken by like, I dunno, a smooch or something?” Ashley laughed even harder nodding. “Wait, really? It’s a kiss?! That’s it?!”

“Not, not just any kiss!” he sputtered. “It has to be that of his true love! So good luck figuring that one out!” He collapsed, wheezing with laughter, until he saw her roll her eyes and march over towards her brother. “Wh… what are you doing?”

Mabel dropped the grappling hook as she sat against the stone slab, and ran a hand over her brother’s cheek. He looked so pale, and a little gaunt. His arms were lousy with scabs from the thorns, and his eyes seemed to be whirling about madly under his eyelids, clenched tight in his forced sleep. Leaning in, she bumped her nose to his.

“Wake up, Dip,” she mumbled gently. “I love you.” Her lips pressed to his, and for a brief moment the world seemed to stop. Even though he wasn’t responsive, her heart hammered, and breath hitched. His chest heaved as he took a deep breath, and she broke away from his lips before he started coughing, rolling to the side. His eyelids fluttered, one squinting open as he raised a hand to his forehead.

“Augh, god my head,” he moaned. “Wh… where am… where are we?” he managed to mumble. Mabel felt tears trying to form in her eyes, but with a quick shake of her head she whipped her brother around and squeezed him in the warmest hug she’d ever given him.

“It’s okay,” she mumbled against his neck. “I got you, we’re gonna go back home.”

“I… How…?! Impossible!” Ashley shrieked. Mabel sighed heavily, releasing her grip on her brother.

“You hold up for one sec, bro-bro. I gotta deal with one last problem.” He merely groaned and flopped back on the slab, eyes resting in the crook of his elbow. Bending down, she snatched up the grappling hook and marched closer to Ashley. “I’ve had just about enough of your lip, you wanna shut your trap or do you wanna eat oversized fishhook?”

Before another word was said, she felt a hand settle on her wrist. The touch was warm, and filled her with life. At once she was energized, and felt the thrill of summertime course through her.

“Now now, Mabel,” she heard Titania say as she stepped into view. “There are much more satisfying ways to deal with those that try to incite wars among their own kind.” Mabel could only blink at the Summer Queen, mouth agape.

“How…?”

“Your… _friend_ ,” a cold voice said from her other side, “managed to contact both of us and let us know where the dissenters could be found.” She whipped around to see King Oberon, standing stiff. He glared down at Ashley, who could only stare back up, trembling.

“M-my lord Oberon, I assure you this is not what it looks to be!” he stammered.

“Ashley,” Oberon growled as he leaned down. “Do you think me an idiot? Do you think I didn’t know I had defectors in my own court?” Ashley gulped. “Allowing Miss Pines to track down her brother ultimately would lead me to whatever weeds needed pruning.” He sneered. “I am only shocked to learn that it was you, a _changeling_ , of all Fae, that had such grand ambitions.” Ashley’s only response was to go flat on the floor, quietly sobbing. “You’ll be dealt with accordingly.”

“Wait,” Mabel cut in. “You _knew_ somebody from Winter grabbed my brother?”

“Actually, we both knew it was coming from within each court,” Titania explained. Mabel gawked at her. “But, if either of us were to admit a member of our courts had taken your brother, it would have been an immediate war.” She frowned. “And, accusing the other court of taking him, openly, would also have been a declaration of war.”

“But then why didn’t either of you help me more than you did?!” she demanded, on the verge of tears.

“You were a neutral party,” Oberon said flatly. “You acted on behalf of neither Summer or Winter. Your motives were your own. Had we acted further than we did, we would have been directly involved. War would be inevitable.”

“Doing this on your own, as much as you did, has stopped war altogether,” Titania said reassuringly. “You are, by all rights, the heroine of your own fairy tale.” Mabel, however, didn’t feel very comforted by that, in the moment.

“You’re all horrible,” she snapped. “My brother’s stuck out here in the middle of god knows where and you all just sit back and watch me hunt him down?! Have me almost die several times over, and for what, to avoid _potentially_ starting a war?!”

The King of Winter glared at her, and she felt herself shrink back, her moment of anger fueled passion smothered out.

“We did what we had to do, to keep not only our courts safe, but your brother as well.” He glanced over at Dipper, who lay groaning, on the slab of stone. “If we had moved against one another at all, he would have been disposed of in an attempt to allow the vermin that took him to cover their tracks.”

“Oh, okay,” Mabel squeaked. She felt very small. Titania placed a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, wait a sec… Who did you say managed to contact you two?”

“What, forgetting your friends so easily?” She spun around at the sound of the smug voice, and almost screamed. She tackled Puck to the floor as she hugged him, squealing. “Oh for Summer’s sake stop shrieking, child! My ears are more sensitive than yours, I might hover near death again if you keep that up!”

“I thought you were a friggin’ goner!” she wept, planting a smooch on his cheek. “How did you even recover so fast?! I thought you were, yanno, taking the big forever-nap once I yanked that knife out of you.”

“No, I had to project my consciousness to reach Titania and Oberon,” he explained. “I’m still very much recovering, but not dying anymore gave me enough energy to do that much.”

“Well, you’re not dead, buddy,” she said, hugging tight again. “That’s the important part.”

“And neither are you, if a little scuffed.” He rubbed a hand over her forehead, smoothing out some her wildly frazzled hair. “You are going to make it, right? I didn’t fail you on that front?”

“I just about killed you with a hug and my lungs, you donk,” she teased, playfully slugging him on the shoulder. “I’m tapped out magic wise, though. I need to get home ASAP, and see to it that Dip is gonna be okay.”

“Certainly,” he concurred with a nod, slipping out of her grip and hovering into the air. He extended a hand, which she gladly accepted, tugging herself off of the floor. “My Queen, would I permitted to-”

“Yes, Puck,” Titania said warmly. “You may see to it your friend and her brother make it home safely.” Puck smiled, bowing deeply.

“I’m gonna grab my stuff,” Mabel announced. “Don’t wanna leave it all in that last room.” As she made her way back to grab the various things that had scattered in the fights, she heard Oberon and Titania talking quietly. He offered her a cookie, and she chuckled warmly. Mabel smiled.

Borrowing one of Mabel’s markers, Puck drew a portal sigil out on the floor, took a deep breath, and flicked his fingers. The portal twisted open quietly, like a slowly swirling whirlpool. Mabel got Dipper to his feet, looped his arm around her shoulders, and hauled him over.

“Okay so uh, is this gonna be as rough as when we came through on mine?” Mabel asked. “Because I gotta keep ahold of this disappearing dork while we go through.”

“It’ll be like going down a slide on the playground, I promise,” Puck replied. “Now come on, I might be getting my power back, but I can’t hold this forever.”

With a nod, Mabel took one more step, and into the portal she and Dipper went.

=========

Mabel’s first observation, upon stepping through the portal, was that Puck must have been down some pretty intense playground slides. The ride was smooth, but it felt like they were going eighty miles a minute. Secondly, she noticed that her phone was suddenly an explosion of sound; text messages and voicemails began piling up rapidly. Apparently she hadn’t considered the fact that the Never-Ever wouldn’t have service. She’d check them later, though. Finally, she noted, they had emerged right at the very site where Dipper had been originally snatched. She could still see his claw marks on the ground, however faint they were.

“C’mon, bro, gotta keep movin’,” she muttered as Puck popped into existence behind her.

“Do you want me to carry him?” he asked. “He looks a bit heavy, especially with your leg hurting, it must be-”

“I’m not letting go of him,” she grumbled. “Not until I have him back at the Mystery Shack.” After a few more steps, she shrugged. “Or, well, until we get him to the car I guess.”

The walk to the car was, compared to the last few days of Mabel’s life, incredibly boring. And honestly, she was okay with that. The quick and dirty camouflage she had covered it with when she parked it was untouched. Once it was uncovered, and Dipper was buckled into the front passenger seat, she spun around to face Puck.

“So, uh…” she began, rocking on her heels. “What are the chances that I ever see you again?”

“Wildly unpredictable, I’m afraid,” he remarked, shrugging. “Why do you ask?” Without another word, she yanked him into a rib crushing hug, making him wheeze. He pretended to struggle for a moment or two. “Deceiver! You thank me with slow and agonizing death by affection!”

“Shaddup you goon,” she giggled, releasing him. “I just needed to make sure I was gonna be able to give my friend a hug again, just in case we don’t bump into each other.”

“Well, to be honest,” he said, sitting cross-legged in midair, “it’s never a dull moment around you it would seem. Nobody from the Never-Ever is sure to mess with Mabel “Stormcaller” Pines or her loved ones in the future, but I’m certain a stupid monster or two on this side won’t hesitate! And who am I to stay away when there’s excitement?”

They simply grinned at one another, and Mabel bent at the waist in one final bow to him.

“Goodbye, Puck, and thank you. For everything. Sorry I got you stabbed.”

“Oh p’shaw, it was a flesh wound! Only pierced a lung and nicked the heart.” He smiled warmly and nodded to her. “Thank you, for saving my life and giving me back my freedom, even after I nearly failed to see you through to the end.”

“So we’re even then?” He narrowed his eyes at her, and she merely waggled her eyebrows. Both of them burst out laughing. “Stay out of trouble Puck.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he teased. She marched around to the driver side door and got settled in the car. Dipper was mumbling incoherently, still half awake.

“M… Mabel? Where are we?” he mumbled.

“In the Mabel-Mobile,” she chimed, cranking the engine. Dipper just nodded, groaning.

“So it was all a dream?””

“Yeah, sure, let’s go with that for now. You rest buddy, I’ll getcha to the Shack.” He grinned a half-there grin, and let his eyes flutter shut. She frowned, reaching over to pat the top of his head. “I’m takin’ you home, bro-bro.”

Pulling out onto the road, she glanced in her rearview mirror. Puck bowed in her direction, and then with a puff of smoke, was gone.

=========

Their return to the Mystery Shack was a whirlwind of chaos.

Stanley and Stanford had gotten back shortly after she had left, and after Soos had given them the details (or most of them, considering the places where Soos embellished the tale), been attempting nonstop to reach her. Apparently, all the messages on her phone were from them.

As soon as her car was pulled into the drive, the door to the Shack was flung open and people came pouring out. The Grunkles, Soos and Melody, all rushing to the car, each asking a hundred questions at once.

“Whoa, hey people! First things first, help me get this dork inside, and let me take a two hour shower followed by a twelve hour nap, and I’ll field every question!” she called out.

“She’s right, we need to make sure Dipper is stable before we go pestering either of them for more information,” Grunkle Ford stated. “Soos, you and Stan get him to my study. Melody, could you please make sure we have enough bottled water in the house? I’m willing to bet he’s going to be dehydrated for a day or two. As much as I like this rickety old house, I can’t say I trust the water that much.”

As Stan and Soos helped Dipper groggily make his way inside, he kept muttering things about the strangest dream he’d had, how it felt like it had lasted for days. Mabel just stood and watched for a moment, until she felt the familiar touch of her great uncle’s hand on her shoulder.

“He looks like he’s just very, very tired,” he noted. “Looks like he was out for awhile, and at the same time struggling with a mental assault.”

“Actually yeah that about sums it up,” she muttered. He perked a brow. “I’ll give ya all the details I can later, but long story short some Fae jerk was rootin’ around in his brain, trying to open up a way through to the mindscape. Wanted to use Dippin’ Dots as a portal for his armies.”

“I… one can traverse the mindscape in that fashion?!” Mabel frowned at him. “Right, right. I’m sorry, you look like you had it rougher than he did. Go get cleaned up and rest. I’ll ask for more information later.”

=========

The next day and a half, for Mabel, was split between naps, drinking as much water as she could, and inhaling as much food as she could cram into her mouth. Puck had never warned her how hungry she would get after using that much magic. She made a mental note to jokingly reprimand him for it if she bumped into him again.

Whenever she was awake and not pigging out, she would sit with Stanford and go over the details of the last few days to him. She explained Dipper being taken, her interactions with the various creatures of Gravity Falls, and finding Winkelmeyer’s store. She described how she found Puck, how magic worked, how she was bad at every kind of it but the kind that involved doodles. She told him what the Summer and Winter Courts were like, how she killed a bridge troll, how a bunch of ants nearly ate her, and how she ended up being the King of the Wild Hunt. Last, but not least, she laid out her fight with her late ex boyfriend, and finally Dipper’s kidnapper.

“That is… utterly fascinating,” he said, pen in hand, staring at her wide eyed. “How did you get Dipper out of the sleep curse though? You failed to mention that.”

She felt her face go red for half a second. Oh crud, why did she mention that bit? She’d conveniently left out everything else about her finding out about Dipper’s feelings for her. Why did she let the curse thing slip?!

“I, uh, threatened to put the business end of my grappling hook through his face,” she fibbed, eyes downcast. “So he lifted it.” Ford nodded, scratching away at the page in his current journal. “Hey, uh, is Dipper gonna be okay?”

“Hm? Oh, yes, from what I can tell. He’s just very disoriented, and he was dangerously on the verge of severe dehydration. He’s doing fine, in fact Stan and Soos have probably got him moved up into his bed in the attic by now,” he muttered, checking his watch. “Why do you a-”

When he looked up, all he saw was a flash of pink sweater, and Mabel was out the door.

=========

When Dipper Pines woke up for the eighteenth time in two days, the first thing he noticed was how horribly dry his mouth felt. Again. He groped around his bed until he felt plastic crinkle under his fingers. With a grunt, he lifted it to his lips, popping the cap open and taking a long, noisy slurp.

“Hey there.” The next thing he noticed was the feeling of a hand brushing hair out of his face. It was warm to the touch, and comfortable. He cracked open an eye to see his sister sitting next to his bed, on a rickety old wooden chair. “How ya feelin’, broseph?”

“Like a sack of ass that was sent down a whitewater river,” he grunted, before sucking down the rest of his bottle of water. “What the hell happened?”

“Well, uh, you’ve been in a sort of induced coma the last few days…” she began. He winced as his brain seemed to switch on.

“Lemme guess, that Fae did that, right?”

“Oh, you _do_ remember that now?” she asked, voice wavering. _Crud, I wasn’t ready to give him all the details yet! C’mon bro-bro, why is it never easy with you?!_ He nodded.

“A little bit, yeah. It’s like a bunch of fleeting glances, pictures… I remember vines,” he said, holding up a forearm and frowning at the angry scratches there. “I remember a white room and a cold stone table. I remember…” His face twisted for a moment, as he tapped his knuckles to his forehead.

“Don’t strain, Dipper,” Mabel pleaded. “You’re still getting back up to full speed.”

“Chad!” he blurted. “Where the hell is-” Mabel clamped her hand over his mouth to stop him from yelling anything more.

“Chad’s dead.” He could only blink at how blunt and void of concern her reply was. He furrowed his brow at her. She shrugged, pulling her hand away. “I kinda burnt him to a crisp.”

“You… what? How, why?!”

“I nuked the turd. With magic, and because he helped that other Fae buttface swipe you.” She shrugged again. “Plus he tried to kill me, and almost killed the only friend I had while I was trying to rescue you.”

“I… wow.”

“Yeah, plus he got kinda rapey? Like, I admit, looking back on when we dated, he was being a bit of a creeper but his behavior in the Never-Ever, eugh.” Dipper perked a brow at her.

“In the where?” She grinned sheepishly.

“Oh, uh, that’s where the Fae took you. I had to learn a lot of nerdy things to get me through what I dealt with over there.” She reached out and rubbed her fingertips over the top of his hand. “In fact, a lot of it, I remembered from talkin’ to you about your games and stuff. If anything, you helped me save you.”

“What… what all happened over there? Mabel you look rough.” When she frowned, and pulled her hand away, he shrugged. “What?!”

“It’s not like I’m gonna do my makeup while I keep a vigil to see when you’ll wake up, you jerk!” she grumped. He sighed, turning his hands palm up and staring at them.

“Mabel, you look like you’ve been through hell, but you’re still the prettiest girl I know,” he mumbled. She blushed, and was glad he wasn’t looking straight at her. “I’m just worried about you. Usually we go through the monster stuff together. I don’t like knowing you did all this alone, and risked your life to save me.” He frowned. “Or, well, I am glad you did it. I just don’t like to imagine how hard it was, but I’m grateful, very grateful you got me home in one piece.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” she sighed. “Just been a rough week. First half was all adventure and rescues and this last part has been constant worry about you.” He nodded. “I mean, I tracked you across the Never-Ever by using magic on your journal, I almost got eaten-twice!-and I even killed a couple of trolls.”

“Hey, Mabes…?” he asked, and she swore she heard his voice crack.

“Yeah Dip?” He cleared his throat, and scratch at the top of one hand.

“How did you say you tracked me down, again?” Reaching down beside herself, she tugged up the backpack and produced the journal from within, handing it to him.

“That. I worked a little scribble magic on it and it acted like a radar.” His expression fell, and she tilted her head. “Why, what’s up?”

“Did… did you read any of it?” Oh. Oooohh. Right. She had forgotten a lot of that while she focused on making sure he stayed alive, hadn’t she? Dang.

“I… uh…” She chewed at her lower lip. Dipper’s shoulders shook, and she noticed a tear hitting the cover of the book. “Hey, c’mon man.”

“H-how… how could you still save me if you, if you know what a gross freak I am?” he whispered. Her heart sank. “I’m disgusting, Mabel! I don’t know why I feel the way I do, or if I could ever stop, but I just want you to know I’m not g-gonna do anything else to hurt you.”

Mabel was out of the chair and on the bed in a heartbeat, tugging him into a hug. She rubbed the back of his head and shushed at him softly, planting a soft kiss on his forehead. He buried his face in her shirt.

“Hey, hey, stop it. You’re home safe.” He shook his head.

“But I’m such a fucking freak!” he sobbed. “What kind of sicko falls in love with their own si-”

Tilting his head up in both hands, she lowered her lips onto his. His body stiffened, but surely enough, he slowly relaxed, pressing into the kiss after a few more seconds. When Mabel pulled away, she wiped the tears from his cheeks.

“So hey, you remember anything about the sleep curse that the one creepo said he laid on you before I came to getcha?”

“A… a little bit?” He rubbed one of his eyes with the heel of his palm. “Something about eternal rest until…” He paused, glancing back up at her.

“Until…” she repeated, motioning for him to continue.

“Until… true…” He spent the next few seconds blinking in confusion at her. “Until true love’s kiss was given freely to me?”

“And are you still sleepin’?” she insisted, petting over his messy brown hair. He shrugged.

“Heh, maybe, I mean this sort of thing would only happen in my wildes-OW!” He swatted at one of her hands. “Mabel my ribs are tender right now.”

“Well ya look awake to me.” His eyes widened. “Hey look, the train’s gettin’ to the station!”

“I… no.” She nodded. “You mean you don’t hate me?”

“Dipper I could never hate you. And I would think that way things are looking, it’s the exact opposite.” He scoffed. “Hey if you’re gross for feeling this way, we’re both gross.”

“You aren’t gross, you’re perfect! Hell, you probably trampled a warpath throughout the, what was it, Never-Ever, to find me, causing who knows what kinds of utter chaos in your wake.”

“Yeah, and I remember once upon a time when somebody dove off a cliff to save me from a giant robot.” He snorted. “Or talked me to back to my senses when I wanted to be twelve forever.”

“Yeah I guess I did that stuff, huh?” he agreed. “But… how long have you known?”

“About three, maybe four days? Time was weird over there and we’ve barely been back here for three days.” She snuggled closer against him. “But yeah, I was readin’ your book while we hunted you down and, uh, I can’t help being nosy, you know how I am.”

“Yeah we discerned that,” he murmured. “How long have you, uh, felt… like I do?”

“Three, maybe four days? Probably longer if I think about real hard, but I’ve only known for that long I guess.” She shrugged, and nuzzled in against his neck. “Why’s that matter?”

“It doesn’t, I just… you know me, gotta know everything, heh,” he admitted, rubbing at his neck. “But, this doesn’t, yanno, solve everything.”

“Whatcha mean, broseph?”

“Mabel, come on! We’re brother and sister! We can’t… we can’t be like _that_.” 

She huffed and sat up, arms crossed. “And why not?!”

“It’s not normal!” he replied, slightly too loud.

“And we are?!” she fired back. He grabbed his pillow and slammed it over his face, muffling a scream for a few moments.

“It’s not that simple, Mabes! It’ll be hard, to try and do this sort of thing. It’ll be a fight every step of the way, to keep what we have, and what happens if we lose each other?”

“Well, I dunno about _you_ ,” she grumbled, “but I _lost_ you. I had to _fight_ every step of the way to get you back. I was assaulted by trolls, almost eaten by ants, and I even had to give the gnomes _dating advice._ ” She flicked the end of his nose harmlessly. “And a lot of that was before I realized how I felt. You think I won’t fight tooth and nail for you?”

“No, I don’t think that,” he relented. He sat up and buried his face in his hands. “I just don’t want to hurt you, somehow, and end up losing my best friend in the process.”

She frowned, straddled his lap, and pulled his face out of his hands. He refused to meet her eyes until she put her face right up to his, nose to nose.

“Dipper Pines,” she mumbled. “If you ever think that you would let yourself hurt me, you tell me right this minute.”

“I could never hurt you, Mabel. I love you.” he chuckled a bit. “Wow, that feels good to say out loud.”

“Exactly,” she chirped, pecking at his lips. “So say it out loud.”

“I love you.” _Smooch_. “I love you.” _Snog_. “I LOVE y-” She slapped her hand over his mouth.

“Maybe not that loud just yet, ya dork,” she giggled. He nodded, then cupped her hand with his and planted a few tender kisses against her palm. Her stomach fluttered.

“I love you, Mabel Pines.”

“I love you too, Dipper. But I’m tired as hell and it’s like four in the morning.” She yawned, and flopped into the bed next to him. “Wanna get coffee at Greasy’s tomorrow?”

“You mean when we wake up?”

“Yeah, that’s when tomorrow is. Today isn’t over ‘til we either fall asleep or the sun comes up,” she explained, and he snorted.

“Okay, sure. Like a date?”

“Exactly like a date,” she purred. “You gotta buy your new girlfriend the Hungry Manly Dan Special,” she teased, planting a soft kiss on his neck. He chuckled.

“Alright, works for me.” He nestled in, worming an arm around her shoulders to hold her close. “I love you, Mabes.”

“I love you too, Dip.”

Cozied up together, brother and sister, boyfriend and girlfriend, they got the most restful sleep either had gotten in months.

_So, how does this story end? Well, short of the usual drama that tends to go with most relationships in general, their story goes much the same as any other fairy tale._

**_~And They Lived Happily Ever After~_ **

-END-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :Author’s Notes:
> 
> First and foremost, I know most old fairy tales didn’t really end with “happily ever after” scenarios. We like to pretend they did anymore, and that’s what I’m rolling with :V
> 
> Second: Holy crap. I just wrote what I presume will be over 60k. Good lord.
> 
> Third, and most important: Thank you. Thank you to everyone who read this. Thank you to the friends who helped and encouraged me. And especially thank you to my fiancée for putting up with me while I wrote this.


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